County Meet Scandal: Sports Ministry Admits Lofa Was Wrongfully Disqualified

Published: September 7, 2026

PAYNESVILLE — Lofa County’s elimination from the football competition at the 2025-26 National County Sports Meet stood only because a committee exceeded its authority, the Ministry of Youth and Sports has found, eight months after the tournament ended and too late to restore the matches the county lost.

A special ad hoc committee the ministry set up to review Lofa’s complaint found that the National Organizing Committee had no power to overturn an Appeals Committee ruling ordering a replay of Lofa’s disputed preliminary-round match against Grand Cape Mount. The committee, chaired by Jeremiah Samuel Dugbo, issued its conclusions and recommendations Aug. 13.

“Under the applicable framework, the Appeals Committee constituted the final appellate body for the dispute,” the committee said in its ruling. “Its decision ordering a replay of the match, howbeit controversial, should therefore not have been overturned by the Organizing Committee outside the procedures established under the applicable NCSM Rules and Regulations.”

The intervention “amounted to an overreach of its authority” and undermined the established grievance and appeals process, the committee said.

The dispute began with a Dec. 21 preliminary-round match between the two counties, moved from the Doris Williams Sports Stadium to the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex after organizers cited integrity concerns. Lofa was disqualified afterward over accusations that it fielded ineligible First Division players, and Grand Cape Mount was awarded three points and two goals. Lofa challenged the disqualification and the Appeals Committee ordered the match replayed.

The body that intervened argued the replay order was not supported by the competition’s rules and contradicted the established penalty for fielding ineligible players. It relied on Article 24, Section A of the 2025-26 NCSM Rules and Regulations, which gives it authority over matters the rules do not expressly cover.

The ad hoc committee did not identify who authorized that intervention. Its recommendations point instead at the rules. It wants the 2026 regulations to define the powers and jurisdiction of the Steering, Organizing, Protest and Grievance, and Appeals committees, and to establish that Appeals Committee decisions are final except where a further review mechanism is expressly provided.

The committee also cut a $5,000 fine imposed on Lofa over the violent conduct of its kickball players, ruling it excessive and reducing it to $1,500 under Article 22.1 of the 2025 NCSM Rules and Regulations.

It left the sanctions on the players and officials standing. The evidence showed serious misconduct including the physical assault of match officials, the ruling said, and there was “no sufficient basis” to disturb the penalties against 17 Lofa kickball players and seven officials. The committee said it had no authority to overturn sanctions imposed separately by the National Kickball Federation, whose institutional independence it said must be respected.

Sen. Momo Cyrus, who chairs the Lofa County Sports Steering Committee, welcomed the finding at a news conference over the weekend.

“This is very key for the people of Lofa to know: We did nothing wrong for us to have been eliminated or disallowed,” Cyrus said.

Cyrus criticized the officials who oversaw the 2025-26 meet, among them former Youth and Sports Minister Jeror Cole Bangalu and former Internal Affairs Minister Francis Sakila Nyumalin Sr., who chaired the steering committee.

“The organizing committee … were just very damn wrong in their decisions to disallow us to attend,” Cyrus said.

The finding gives Lofa an official acknowledgment that its disqualification was improperly handled. It arrives after the competition ended.