Isha Johansen says Sierra Leone football is in “a terrible state” and is determined to be the next president of the country’s football association to make the necessary changes.<\/p>\n
The 47-year old has already founded her own Sierra Leone Premier League club, FC Johansen.<\/p>\n
She is also well known for her work with youth football in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n
She is the first candidate to officially declare her intention to run for president in July’s SLFA elections.<\/p>\n
Johansen says she has taken her inspiration from the current president of the Burundi Football Federation, Lydia Nsekera, and Izetta Wesley – the former head of the Liberian FA.<\/p>\n
“Nsekera is doing a good job in Burundi and I’m following her footsteps. I’m planning to contact her and Wesley to learn from them,” Johansen told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
She believes that she is in the best position to bring about a change in Sierra Leone football.<\/p>\n
“The SLFA is in a terrible state and I want to make a change,” she declared.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve exposed talents and also helped in the re-branding of Sierra Leone in the world\u201d – Isha Johansen<\/p>\n
“I believe I’m in the best position to bring about the change. I’ll bring integrity, sanity and discipline into the SLFA.”<\/p>\n
Johansen is not daunted by the fact she is set to be the first ever female candidate for the SLFA presidency.<\/p>\n
“There are two types of people in this world – those who make history, and those who are part of making history,” she said.<\/p>\n
“If the delegates were to endorse and believe in me, they would be part of changing the face and the fate of football in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n
“My contributions to Sierra Leone football are immense, I’ve exposed talents and also helped in the re-branding of Sierra Leone in the world.”<\/p>\n
She is expected to face a tough challenge, with seasoned football administrators Rodney Michael, Alhaji Mohamed Nabie and former international Brima ‘Mazola’ Kamara all set run for the post too.<\/p>\n
Johansen has a public relations background and became involved in football administration when she formed her club FC Johansen in 2004.<\/p>\n
She rose to prominence in Sierra Leone football due to the successes of her club in international youth competitions over the last four years.<\/p>\n
FC Johansen won the Swiss Under-16 Cup last year, defeating Liverpool in the final and winning the Mitnordick Cup in Sweden in 2009.<\/p>\n
She also organised two youth tournaments in Freetown in 2009 and 2010 featuring teams from Africa, Brazil and Norway.<\/p>\n
By Mohamed Fajah Barrie BBC Sport, Freetown <\/em><\/p>\n Stay with Sierra Express Media, for your trusted place in news!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Isha Johansen says Sierra Leone football is in “a terrible state” and is determined to be the next president of the country’s football association to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[824,1],"tags":[1898,5635,1574],"class_list":["post-40682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-isha-johansen","tag-sierra-leone-football-association","tag-slfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sierraexpressmedia.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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