Football: African Nations Cup 2015 qualifiers |18 July 2014

Seychelles take on Kargbo-less Sierra Leone

Seychelles will be looking to add to Sierra Leone’s worries when the two teams clash in tomorrow’s African Nations Cup 2015 qualifier.

According to Reuters news agency, this week football authorities in Sierra Leone indefinitely suspended four national team players, including captain Ibrahim Kargbo, three referees and eight other officials on allegations of match-fixing.

Three of the players had been called up to play in tomorrow’s qualifier against Seychelles in Freetown.

Reuters adds that in a press release jointly signed by Sierra Leone Sports Minister Paul Kamara and Sierra Leone Football Association president Isha Johansen, the 15 are alleged to have been involved in fixing the outcome of a Nations Cup qualifier against South Africa in 2008 which ended in a goalless draw.

Kargbo is a defensive midfielder who has won 36 caps for his country and can boast having played in Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey. Most recently, the 32-year-old was on the books of RWDM Brussels, while he has also won the Azerbaijani Cup with Baku FC. The release says the two institutions received "credible and tangible information" on the alleged involvement of the group in match-fixing and that the players will have nothing to do with the weekend fixture.

Kargbo, 32, had last season been playing club football in Belgium but was most recently on trial at Swindon Town in England.

The other players implicated are defender Ibrahim Koroma, who plays at Varbarg in Sweden; Samuel Barlay, who plays in Azerbaijan and goalkeeper Christian Caulker who plays for local side FC Kallon.

The suspended officials include football administrator Rodney Michael who was controversially disqualified from running for FA president in August last year on allegations that he had links to a sports-betting company.

Michael said he was "in total shock" and referred to it as "a political interference into the running of football".
Speaking to Reuters from London, he called the suspension "a witch-hunt because I am leading a crusade for the FA to hold its annual congress which is stated in the constitution to (be held) not later than August this year".

Meanwhile, the Seychelles team arrived in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown on Wednesday morning ahead of tomorrow’s fixture.

Seychelles Football Federation secretary general Jemmy Adela told Sports Nation in a telephone conversation yesterday that “the players and officials are doing fine and looking forward to the game”.

Before going to Freetown, the team, under the leadership of caretaker coach Ulric ‘Keker’ Mathiot, played an official friendly against Uganda in Kampala and were edged 1-0 by the Cranes. Captained by seasoned defensive midfielder Henny Dufresne, the local side also lost 5-1 to the Ugandans in an unofficial meeting.

Seychelles automatically made it through to the second qualifying round for the 2015 African Nations Cup qualifiers after their first round opponents – Gambia – were banned by the Confederation of African Football (Caf) for match-fixing.

Seychelles were to play Gambia in the two-legged preliminaries for a place in the qualifiers for the African Nations Cup finals scheduled for Morocco in January 2015. The first leg match was to be played during the weekend of July 18-20 and the second leg from August 1-3.

The Caf executive committee decided in early May to suspend the Gambia Football Association from all Caf competitions for two years for deliberately falsifying players' ages.

The decision came after Gambia were disqualified from the qualifiers for the continent's under-20 championship for fielding overage players in April.

As a result, Gambia have been banned from all Caf competitions – including the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations – in line with a clause in Caf's regulations.
Fifteen teams will qualify for the 16-nation African Nations Cup and will join hosts Morocco in the tournament.
Seychelles have never qualified for the continental tournament.

G. G.