The Business of Leading Through Resistance: Isha Johansen on Power and Governance

This exclusive interview with Isha Johansen was conducted by Tabish Ali of the Motivational Speakers Agency.

Football is judged in 90 minutes. Isha Johansen has spent much of her career confronting what happens beyond the touchline, where governance, money, integrity and power can shape the game just as decisively as the final score.

The former president of the Sierra Leone Football Association later became the first West African woman elected to the FIFA Council. Long before reaching football’s highest decision-making levels, she founded FC Johansen in 2004, using the club to provide education and opportunities for young people affected by Sierra Leone’s civil war.

In an interview with the Motivational Speakers Agency, Johansen speaks about leading in a sport historically dominated by men, the stereotypes female leaders still face and why football cannot afford to treat ethics and good governance as issues separate from the game itself.

Question 1. What does a woman bring to football leadership that may be different from the traditional male approach?

Isha Johansen: “I think we’re a lot more passionate about what we do.

“Integrity and trust in a female leader is something that, even if men don’t want to admit it, deep down they do trust. There is a certain, deeper element of integrity that will be instilled in the game or whatever it is that we choose to do.

“I also think women bring a maternal approach to the work that we do, whether that’s good or bad. For me, I just mothered them. All those kids became my children. They called me mum and called their mothers by their first name, their big sister or something.

“Apart from the football, we go deeper and try to do more to help the game and the players, and to take a much more motherly and all-encompassing view.

“I think we do that. I’m speaking for myself anyway.”

Question 2. Female leaders in sport are often stereotyped as too emotional or lacking football knowledge. How much truth is there in that perception?

Isha Johansen: “I think they probably think we’re too emotional or that we don’t know much about football, how it works or how it should be run, because men have a different approach.

“I can understand when they say that, maybe not that we don’t know anything about the game, but that maybe we’re emotional. I certainly am.

“I’ve very often moved away from just sticking to the plan with the game and looked at why a footballer is like this, or why he behaves in certain ways.

“You will find that a lot of these players, at least from Africa, come from very low-income, impoverished backgrounds and very challenging situations. They take that onto the pitch and into their game of play.

“Ethics comes into play, or the lack of it. So yes, I think it’s the way we are as mothers and being very emotional, and they think we can’t be trusted.”

Question 3. In football, where results and money often dominate the conversation, what does leadership with integrity actually require?

Isha Johansen: “I certainly know what it feels like. It’s very challenging.

“The circumstances differ. In Europe, integrity and good governance are something that people have learned to embrace, and that is an absolute must.

“In this part of the world, integrity and good governance are a lot more challenging to implement. For most people, especially the men, including players and fans, they look at football as 90 minutes bringing the results they want to see. It’s the points, the trophies, the wins and, ultimately, the money.

“What they don’t see, don’t understand or don’t want to understand, but are now gradually being forced to, is that football is more than just 90 minutes on the pitch. There’s so much more to that game.

“Football is governed by rules. You don’t just go and kick a ball. There are rules to that game, and in order to preserve the beautiful game, you have to adhere to them.

“That’s where governance, ethics and integrity come in. You can’t bring in match-fixing because that goes against the integrity of the game. Football is all about fair play. You can’t do age cheating.

“All of these things are part of football, not just what you see for 90 minutes. That has become a big challenge, but we’re getting there.

“In Europe, it’s a lot easier to accept. In other parts of the world, South America and Africa, you hear of these occurrences all the time, and it does affect the governance of the game. But we’re getting there.”

Question 4. When you speak publicly about football, what do you most want audiences to understand about the game beyond what happens on the pitch?

Isha Johansen: “That football is more than 90 minutes on the pitch. It truly is.

“Football has incredible power to unite, to heal and to create positive social change.

“I would also like people to understand that, apart from the 90 minutes, there is a broader issue, which is integrity and good governance. That is something we struggle with because people don’t think it matters, but it does a great deal.

“We cannot kill this beautiful game by not adhering to the ethics of that game. It slowly brings that very beautiful game to becoming quite an ugly one, and that’s not what it is all about.

“I would also like people to know that there are women sitting in the seats of decision-making and governance in this beautiful game, for both men and women, who are not just tokens.

“It’s quite an in thing now to have women on boards. We now have women who actually know what they’re doing. They embrace the game fully. They govern the game and they’re in it to win it, not to be tokens.”