CAS Delivers Ruling on Legal Battle Between Aminata Bangura and SLFA
Freetown — The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed an appeal by football administrator Aminata Bangura against a decision of the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) Ethics Board, delivering a significant legal victory for the country’s football governing body and reinforcing the legitimacy of its current leadership.
In an Arbitral Award issued on 5 October 2026 in the case CAS 2025/A/11613 Aminata Bangura v. Sierra Leone Football Association, the Lausanne-based tribunal upheld the Ethics Board’s ruling of 19 July 2025 in full and rejected Bangura’s challenge.
The panel ordered Bangura to bear the costs of the arbitration proceedings and to pay a contribution of CHF 3,000 (approximately NLe 77,000) towards the SLFA’s legal costs and expenses.
The dispute formed part of the wider controversies surrounding the SLFA’s elective congress held on 2 August 2025 in Lungi. Bangura, then General Manager of Freetonians SLIFA Football Club, had been declared ineligible by the Ethics Board after it found she had submitted a forged or falsified police clearance certificate. The Board barred her from contesting the presidency, imposed a fine of NLe 5,000, and banned her from football-related activities for one year.
Bangura secured a provisional CAS order on 31 July 2025 that temporarily allowed her to stand in the election. She participated and finished second with 11 votes, while Babadi Kamara secured a decisive victory with 43 votes (one abstention). Related challenges to the election results were also brought by Bangura, ex-officio candidate Musa K.D. Mahmood, and Freetonians SLIFA before the SLFA Electoral Appeals Committee, which upheld Kamara’s election.
The final CAS decision confirms the Ethics Board’s original findings and sanctions, closing the matter at the highest level of international sports arbitration.
The ruling removes one of the last outstanding international legal challenges linked to the 2025 electoral process and provides greater certainty for the SLFA under President Babadi Kamara as it continues efforts to strengthen domestic competitions, national teams, and overall football development.
