The President of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) Isha Johansen and two others have been detained over corruption allegations.
The country’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) picked the trio up after an FA Cup match on Wednesday.
The head of the ACC Ade Macauley said the arrests were due to “discrepancies in the financial statement of the SLFA relating to donor funds.”
The trio denied the allegations during questioning.
Johansen and SLFA vice-president Brima Mazola Kamara as well as secretary general Christopher Kamara spent the night in detention.
The move came just hours after the ACC started Operation Thunderbolt, that is aimed at intensifying their fight against corruption.
Johansen’s arrest came a day after returning from Ivory Coast where she attended the Leone Stars Africa Cup of Nation’s 2017 final qualifying match last Saturday at the Stade de la Paix in Bouake, Ivory Coast.
The arrested persons have been detained for alleged misappropriation of funds at the CID headquarter in Freetown.
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An official at the ACC Patrick Sandy said they decided to make the arrests because of lack of cooperation from the SLFA.
“We are invesigating funds SLFA received from Fifa, Caf and government of Sierra Leone as we have the mandate to do so,” Sandy added.
“We have invited them in writing and through other means to report to our headquarters but they disregarded our invitations.
“We wrote a letter to the SLFA scribe to submit documents relating to SLFA finances but they refused to cooperate.
“Instead they wrote back stating that they are not accountable to us and it could be considered as political interference, as they they are only answerable to Fifa.
“The ACC is not a political institution, we are independent.”
In the past the SLFA has insisted they are only accountable to football’s world governing body, Fifa.
BY MOHAMED FAJA BARRIE REPORTING FOR THE BBC
