By S. Siapha Mulbah
The Liberia football Association is reportedly at the verge of disassociating itself from Cassell A. Kouh under the leadership of president Mustapha Raji because of Kouh’s involvement in some criminal activities that landed him in US prison some seven years ago.
The president of the local football house recently labeled the president and owner of the Liberia first national division outfit Muscat FC, soon to be named Fassel Football Club, as a big fraudster, money launderers that should be resisted from funding football programs under the watch of the football association.
Raji, addressing the question of his alleged rejection of US$5,000 from the football stakeholder as part of contributing to the national youth female team fundraising campaign said the football association is not aware of any intention made by Cassell Kouh to have made a donation to the team during the process.
Raji said if the football could have ever gotten the information that Kouh had any plan of making donations to the team, he would have rejected such under his administration as president of the Liberia Football Association.
He justified that the LFA does not know the source of the football administrator’s funding and as such it cannot be used to facilitate the workings and development of the national teams’ activities with the institution in the know because it poses threats to the fight against financial crimes witnessed on a daily basis in the football environment.
Speaking at a recent media engagement hosted by the LFA at its Swankamore community headquarters, the FA president reaffirmed that there will be series of campaigns held by other football stakeholders against those involved in financial malpractices and intending to get in the football governance to manipulate the system and use the LFA as conduit of execution of their activities.
“He did not come to the FA with any donation. Had he come, I would not have taken his donation. If he wanted to do it, why don’t he go to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, who is the owner of the national team. We, as the Liberia Football Association, will not set examples of taking direct contributions from this individual that was jailed and deported for wired fraud,” Raji asserted.
Reports gathered further suggested that the LFA is comprehensively working out some basic legal barriers that would also prevent Cassell and other sports stakeholders from contesting the upcoming elective congress especially in key positions on backgrounds of their reported engagement into dubious acts and criminal nature.
LFA boss has emphasized that the law will be used to run the football house and ensure that there be no boycott of the integrity that football stakeholders have built for the country.
But Kouh, who is a former Vice president of operation at the LFA, has continuously challenged that there is no law in the football governance instrument that prevents him from participating and contesting in the ensuing elections.
According to Cassell, he is now a free citizen whose rights and privileges were restored after serving seven years imprisonment for crimes committed in the past against the United States law.
