Isha Johansen – The Uncommon Enemy

Isha Johansen      President, Sierra Leone FA and FIFA Board member

Isha’s story is an extraordinary one. She was introduced to me and to TLC via Steve Davies who as many of you may know has a very close association with Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leone National Railway Museum and he said that we should get to know Isha – and so we did!

In a nutshell Isha is an African entrepreneur, philanthropist and socialite growing up in privilege, in a football loving family (Tejan-Cole) amongst male siblings, played football with the boys and aspired to great things in what was very much a man’s world. She founded FC Johansen in Freetown made up of young boys who had nothing, from the local slums. Many were displaced and orphaned through civil war and the opportunity she created gave them a chance to better their lives and build a future.

Boys flocked in, Isha invested in personnel and resources, and turned it into a proper football club. In a time when the political narrative of `Sierra Leone was all about child soldiers and some of the most brutal barbarism in modern history, Isha took her young team to compete in a number of international youth tournaments, emerging as under 15 champions against Liverpool in the Swiss Youth Cup. In the blink of an eye, FC Johansen was playing in the elite league of Sierra Leone.

Understandably, Isha declared her intention to run for the Presidency of the Sierra Leone Football Association and even given huge challenges – she succeeded.

Now the story develops and continues. What happened next?