By By: Staff Writer
Lone Star fell 1-0 to Mali at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in the AFCON Qualifier on Tuesday, but it is not the defeat that has Liberians talking – it is the statement that came after from the Chair of the National Team Mobilization Committee, Rev. Dr. J. Luther Tarpeh.
In a Facebook post meant to thank Liberians for the “amazing turnout” and encourage them that “Rome was not built in one day,” Tarpeh, who is also Unity Party Chairman, shifted to a political attack on opposition CDcians who criticized his handling of Lone Star affairs. He questioned if they were still bitter about losing power, described them as “mentally deranged” with “detestable reasoning capacity” and “crab mentality,” and said if not for his few friends in the CDC, he would “launch a campaign to donate these people called CDcians somewhere else.”
The outburst triggered an instant backlash. Social commentator Moriah Yeakula wrote that the post proves exactly why Tarpeh should never have been made Mobilization Chair and should be removed. “You must really think Lonestar is UP FC? Your job is not to just mobilize govt, it’s to mobilize the country! Imagine talking about donating a group of Liberians somewhere else because they are your political opponents?” she posted.
Even the Minister of Youth and Sports, Cornelia Wonkerleh Kruah-Torpeh, publicly distanced herself from her own appointee. She wrote: “As Minister of Youth and Sports, I do not agree with this post… The role of Mobilization Chair is not meant to be divisive. It should be the bridge between us the politicians and the rest of the citizens who dearly love our Lonestar. This cannot be another CDC vs UP moment.”
The incident has reignited a long-standing concern in Liberia: that national stakeholders continue to mix sports with politics, at a time when the national team needs unity and professionalism to become competitive again in Africa.
