The president of the Congolese Football Federation (FECOFOOT), Jean-Guy Blaise Mayolas, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of financial misconduct.
Among many offences, Mayolas was found guilty of money laundering, embezzlement, and forgery. Mayolas was not in court as the judge read out the sentence on Tuesday.
Mayolas, who was elected as president of Fecofoot in 2018, was first accused of embezzling $1.3m (£960,000) of FIFA funds, including almost $ 500,000 earmarked for the country’s women’s team, through a number of shell companies.
In March last year, the presidents of clubs in the Congolese Women’s Championship signed a declaration to the Central Intelligence and Documentation Office (CID), a department of the Ministry of the Interior.
In that declaration, the clubs alleged that only $20,000 of the $500,000 Fifa sent to FECOFOOT in 2021 as part of its Covid-19 relief plan was paid out.
Mayolas’s son and wife, who were both implicated in the case, were also sentenced to prison for life.
Other senior FECOFOOT officials, such as the federation’s General Secretary, Badji Mombo Wantete, and its Treasurer, Raoul Kanda, were each sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of their roles in the financial irregularities.
The prosecution reviewed financial documents, banking records, and FECOFOOT’s internal administrative and accounting procedures in an investigation spanning eight months.
