After nearly four years behind bars, Marie, an inmate at Freetown’s Female Correctional Centre, has found a lifeline in an unlikely place: football. Thanks to the Football for Reform initiative, launched by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Marie and 25 other incarcerated women became the first female inmates in Sierra Leone to receive CAF-accredited football coaching training. The eight-day course, held last year on the Astroturf pitch at the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) academy, awarded participants the CAF D License, which qualifies them to coach grassroots-level football. Five correctional officers also joined the program to build a support system within the prison environment.
“I’m proud to have my certificate,” Marie told the BBC World Service. “With it, I want to get a job and stay out of prison. The initiative, led by Isha Johansen, former president of the SLFA and current CAF executive, was born after a visit to the Freetown prison left her disturbed by the number of young women imprisoned for poverty-related petty crimes, many of whom were also mothers. “They had no business being there, doing five or more years with nothing to occupy them,” Johansen said. “Football was the tool I had to make a change.”
The Football for Reform program provides more than coaching. Inmates are trained in sewing jerseys and bibs, creating a pathway to employment in football-related industries. Plans are underway to build a dedicated pitch at the prison in Freetown to sustain the program locally. The success in Sierra Leone has inspired similar efforts in other countries. In Nsawam Prison in Ghana — the country’s largest women’s facility — 115 inmates now have access to the program. Former national team coach and World Cup player Mercy Tagoe was among the instructors, emphasizing how the CAF license can help women reintegrate into society post-release.
“They go to prison to be reformed,” Tagoe said. “This license gives them a practical way forward.” CAF’s pilot initiative is now being expanded in Liberia and has caught the interest of FIFA. Talks are ongoing to extend the scheme to Asia and South America, recognizing the global potential of sport to rehabilitate and empower. “This is about using football as a tool for social transformation,” Johansen said. “It’s not just 90 minutes on the pitch — it’s a new beginning.”
