Do The Right Thing: Honor Wannie Botoe and David Momoh; Football Legends Whose Time Has Come 

Saturday, August 01, 2009

By Benedict "Mama Musa" Wisseh

They are laughed at and disregarded by us. But they were players who played for our country and excelled on the football field against players from other countries under conditions that were depressing. The impressive elegance and quality of their performances, their commitment to football, and the determination to brave those conditions that kept football relevant in Liberia, and opened the doors for their successors to be awarded football scholarships to study at American universities or play football professionally, cannot and should not be ignored.

On August 25, 2006, David Momoh, one of the trailblazers and legends, died after a protracted illness undoubtedly brought on by more than two decades of life trapped in depressing poverty.

Momoh was not just an ordinary Liberian. He was a legendary Liberian footballer (soccer). In football conversations, Liberians, who saw him play remember and consider Momoh as Liberia’s greatest goalkeeper. Others, including foreigners do not equivocate to assert that he was one of the greatest goalkeepers who stood between the goalposts in Africa. I had a conversation with George Sackor about Momoh in Newark, New Jersey, where he and his brother, Garrison “Bulldozer” Sackor live. 

Sackor, who played for IE, Barrolle, and the Liberian Lone Star national team, and a teammate of  Momoh in the 1960s, told me that “David Momoh was a giant. He was so good that at the end of a game, forwards (strikers) from the other national teams stood in line to shake his hands. "If we did not have David Momoh in the goal, others countries would have disgraced us. I cannot remember any game that we lost because David Momoh played bad,” Sackor told me.

George Sackor also told me that in his days, the best footballers were Wannie Botoe, David Momoh, and Gladstone Ofori. Mr. Sackor continued: “I mean these three guys were way up there above us.” For the record, Mr. Ofori, a transplanted Ghanaian came to Liberia as a young man, fell in love with the country and never returned to Ghana. Mr. Ofori passed away in Monrovia and was buried in an unknown grave years ago because his remains could not be identified.

Then there is another story often told many different ways by Liberians, that Mr. Momoh was so magnificent in goalkeeping that a professional team from England expressed interest in securing his services. Some asserts that he refused to go to England because “he wanted to die for his country.” Others claim that he did not go to England because when the representatives of the team came to Liberia to meet with Mr. Momoh, he was away on duty with the Liberian national team. Where the truth rested was difficult for me to establish until 1976, when I had a conversation with Mr. Momoh.

In 1976, when I was a rookie footballer with Bameh, (the team with which Mr. Momoh ended his career), I met him for the first time on the team training ground. I was very thrilled meeting and having a long conversation with him. At the end of our conversation, I respectfully asked him about the offer of professional football contract for him to play in England. He told me that he personally did not meet or talk to any English representatives to play football in England. However, Mr. Momoh told me that an aide to the late Joseph Chesson, then-Chairman of Sports disclosed to him that “Chesson met with some people from England about me. But he told them that the country needed me. Nobody told me nothing when the people were here. I knew about this after they left Liberia. Mr. Chesson told me that the people were going to come back again, but I never heard anything again.” But this contrived misfortune did not discourage Mr. Momoh as he went on to play for Liberia selflessly until the 1970s, when his body could not allow him physically to continue playing.

After his age and body blew the final whistle on his playing career, Liberia too blew its final whistle on the relationship it had with Mr. Momoh. The government’s sports program provided no opportunities for him to work as a coach, team manager, or stadium manager. Unemployed and without fame, his personal life spiraled downward. He became homeless, and people who saw and recognized him mocked his failure and sufferings. In his shame and despair, Mr. Momoh became a recluse and faded into obscurity. 

Hopeless and desperate for solutions and opportunities to ameliorate his sorry state, he turned to religion. But even there he was mocked, and the solutions he sought never materialized for him. The ugliness of life haunted and held him hostage everyday in the last 30 years of his life.

Today, the death of David Momoh, which occurred close to three years ago, is sadly unknown to a great number of Liberians in Monrovia where he died and was buried. The newspapers and radio stations were generally indifferent, perhaps, because their reporters are too young to be fascinated by the history of 1960 and 1970’s footballers. A local daily newspaper reported Mr. Momoh’s death in a two-sentence paragraph that read: “The Ministry of Youth and Sports has announced that David Momoh, a former goalkeeper of the Lone Stars, the Liberian national team, died last week. He was reported to have turned down a football contract to go to England because he wanted to play and die for his country.” 

Worse, the government of the country he committed to die for playing football, without any financial benefits did not issue any official proclamation on his death. Why? Undoubtedly, because David Momoh was not a former government official about whom his family and friends will say in tributes that “he served Liberia with honor and dedication,” or “he served his country faithfully and tirelessly.” Service to country is also performed by ordinary people in their unique ways in different areas of national life. However, unlike government officials and their families in Liberia, ordinary people do not benefit financially from their services.

The juxtaposition of Stephen Tolbert, the late Liberian Minister of Finance and Mr. Momoh, illustrates this. Mr. Tolbert came to government from a family that was not poor financially. However, the family was neither rich nor powerful politically until older brother, William Tolbert, became vice president and later president of Liberia. Stephen Tolbert, educated abroad on government scholarship, served as Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce in the Tubman Administration, and played a significant role in establishing the College of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Liberia. After leaving government, Mr. Tolbert turned to business and relatively did good. 

Stephen Tolbert did not do well to become the millionaire that he had contrived to be in his imagination. However, the opportunity came for him in 1971, when his brother ascended to the presidency and appointed him minister of finance. As minister of finance and using the authority of the office, Stephen Tolbert, who was supposed to serve Liberia with “honor and dedication,” deliberately violated every conflict of interest stipulation. He became an obnoxious bully, and using all sorts of threats and intimidations took over the businesses of his competitors and became a multimillionaire in less than three years.

Conversely, David Momoh, was born into a poor family and poorly educated to be appointed to a government position in which he would have served Liberia. But, his service to Liberia was made as a footballer. In foreign countries, he and his colleagues defended Liberia’s honor on the football field. Domestically, he played in football tournaments organized and sponsored by the Liberian government to improve Liberia’s diplomatic relations with other countries, and for raising funds for government projects. The Israeli Cup, Nehru Cup, and UTA Cup tournaments were respectively held to serve the interests of Liberia’s relations with Israel, India, and France. 

These tournaments were held every year for more than twenty years, and raised substantial amounts in millions of dollars, a penny of which was never given to Mr. Momoh. Stories are told of players who suffered serious injuries in those tournaments and abandoned by the Liberian football authority to care for themselves. In 1972, David Momoh participated in another government-sanctioned football tournament organized to raise money for "Rally Time." The tournament raised thousands of dollars and catapulted its chairman, an unknown local lawyer named C. Cecil Dennis, Jr., into national prominence before his appointment as foreign minister. Was there a coincidence?

Based on what the respective backgrounds of the two men revealed, it is without doubt that financially Mr. Tolbert benefited enormously via unabashed illegal and corrupt means, from serving in government. Yet, when he died tragically in 1975, he was given a state funeral and praised by relatives and friends as a “great patriot who selflessly dedicated himself to the greater good of Liberia.” To make him a permanent present, a statue of him stands at the entrance of a low-cost housing estate that carries his name in Gardnerville. But for David Momoh, who sacrificed and braved serious injuries to his body to raise money for government projects, no such honor and encomiums came his way when he died. Undoubtedly, had he served in government as minister, even with an unscrupulous background, the Liberian government would have showered him with commendations. So, the question for every Liberian is how do we honor David Momoh and his kind?

In Liberia, the passage of time has a way of eroding our memory to rectify errors of national significance. The current Liberian administration and legislature, which witnessed the death and burial of David Momoh, have now the moral responsibility to distinguish themselves from their predecessors in how they see football players. In our history, no footballer has been honored with a street or football field carrying his name. 

Everything has been for and about politicians and their families. In Liberia, we have two football fields named respectively after Antoinette Tubman and Samuel Doe, two people whose respective families benefited financially from government. 

In Ghana, the famous Kumasi Football Stadium has been renamed Baba Yara Football Stadium to honor the country’s greatest footballer. In Nigeria, football fields around the country are being renamed after great players. In Liberia, we must not stand on the periphery and watch other countries make history. The time has come for the current Liberian administration and legislature to rename the Samuel Doe Stadium and Antoinette Tubman Stadium after Wannie Botoe and David Momoh respectively. 

In our history, football has been a national pastime, and as a result it provides social therapy for Liberians. For example, during the sixteen years of national madness, it was only around football that Liberians found sanity and happiness and accepted each other. Had David Momoh, Wannie Botoe, Galdstone Ofori, George Sackor, Jackson Weah, Garrison Sackor, Mass Sarr, Monkey Brown, and others not sacrificed to keep football relevant in its embryonic stage and make it a national pastime, would there have been anything that united us during the years of the civil war? For this, the best way for us to honor David Momoh and his kind is to name football fields after them.

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