Juba National Stadium. (File photo: Courtesy).

Football clubs in Juba have agreed to hold an extraordinary General Assembly on September 2, to elect a steering committee in place of the suspended JLFA Board of Directors, who are in a longstanding feud with the national football governing body – SSFA.

The clubs which are part of the Juba Local Football Association General Assembly met on August 19, 2023, and formed a men’s preparatory committee to facilitate the extraordinary general assembly.

Speaking to Eye Radio on Thursday, Juma John, the head of the preparatory committee confirmed that the Juba Clubs Extraordinary General Assembly will elect a steering committee to act in the place of the suspended JLFA Board of Directors.

He explained that the main purpose of his committee is to form a steering committee to manage JLFA activities as per directives of SSFA’s recent general assembly in Aweil.

“Really the clubs have taken a step to meet and form the preparatory committee, and this is a directive of SSFA’s recent general assembly. We have met and formed a committee which is the preparatory committee is meant to facilitate extra-ordinary general assembly,” Juma told Eye Radio.

Juma also said the upcoming extraordinary general assembly will be funded by clubs and sports lovers in Juba.

“We have two sources of funding always, One is the clubs themselves, they will commit themselves to pay something for general assembly, secondly businesspeople from the sports community are the other source that normally helps us in such case.”

“So, these are the two sources we can cover the budget of general assembly through them, so we decided that the first division clubs pay 10,000 and second and third division will pay 5,000 SSP.”

– Juba Stadium row –

In October 2022, a dispute emerged between the Juba Local Football and the South Sudan Football Association over the ownership of Juba National Stadium.

Later, the two football bodies signed a communique, also referred to as a roadmap to allow SSFA to continue with construction until the final solution is found.

Juba National Stadium was previously owned by the Central Equatoria Ministry of Youth and Sport.

But in 2018, the ministry transferred it to the Juba Local Football Association with the aim of transitioning its ownership to the South Sudan Football Association.

In the same year, the Juba Local Football Association signed a Memorandum of Understanding transferring the stadium ownership to the South Sudan Football Association for 20 years.

However, in November 2022, a fresh dispute emerged between SSFA and JLFA over land in Southeast of Juba Stadium and Juba Stadium itself.

The Board of Directors of the Juba Local Football Association had written a letter of complaint to the Central Equatoria Sports Minister and submitted a petition to FIFA regarding the Juba Stadium dispute.

In response, SSFA handed the body a one-year suspension on January 30, 2023, for having allegedly described the SSFA as irresponsible in a letter communicated to the state sports minister.

The president of the Juba Local Football Association John Ladu eventually announced his resignation from the SSFA Board of Directors membership.

The JLFA Board of Directors also appealed to the SSFA General Assembly as the supreme sports body, to look into the suspension decision by the SSFA Board of Directors.

However, the recently concluded SSFA  8^th Ordinary General Assembly in Aweil rejected the appeal of suspended members and added more than two years to their initial one-year suspension.