Coach in DR Congo banned by Fifa for 20 years for sexual abuse still training young players

A coach in the Democratic Republic of the Congo who was banned from football for 20 years by Fifa in March 2023 for sexual abuse of a minor is continuing to take charge of young players, the Guardian can reveal.

Jonathan Bukabakwa, who is known as Messi and previously coached youth teams in the Limpopo and Malabo regions, was also fined 100,000 Swiss francs after a Fifa investigation found him of guilty of sexual abuse. He had also been convicted of similar offences by authorities in the DRC but was released from prison last year.

The Guardian has seen several videos of Bukabakwa coaching a group of young players at Esperanto, a club in the Limete district of the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Several local sources have confirmed that he has been regularly spotted taking charge of groups at a school field. “Messi? He’s still coaching, you can easily meet him with his team. He doesn’t hide,” said one, who did not want to be named.

Esperanto did not respond for a request to comment but Bukabakwa, when contacted by the Guardian, did not deny that he is continuing to coach young players and even claimed he was not aware that he had been banned by Fifa. “They never told me anything,” he said. “They never questioned me or sent me anything.” He has denied the allegations.

Fifa did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment. It said in the statement that announced Bukabakwa’s ban in 2023 that its decision had been taken “in line with Fifa’s zero tolerance approach to all forms of abuse in football”. The statement added: “World football’s governing body has regularly updated its regulatory framework in recent years to provide greater protection to victims of discrimination and sexual abuse or harassment.”

The case has again highlighted serious flaws with Fifa’s safeguarding processes. It is understood that the Congolese Association Football Federation (Fecofa) president, Véron Mosengo-Omba, has summoned Bukabakwa and the president of Esperanto to a meeting on Monday after being contacted by the Guardian.

“We have zero tolerance for this kind of behaviour,” he said in a statement. “We will punish anyone involved in this kind of conduct.”

Bukabakwa was provisionally suspended after allegations of widespread sexual abuse in the DRC were made in the media in November 2022. He and five other coaches were provisionally suspended by Fecofa, including Donga Epapa Cédric who was sacked by his club, JMK, after allegedly asking a player to send him photos of his penis. No action was taken against him or any of the other coaches by Fecofa or Fifa following an investigation that cleared them all due to a lack of proven evidence. Cédric has previously denied the allegations.

Mosengo-Omba, who was elected as Fecofa’s president in May having stepped down as the Confederation of African Football’s general secretary two months earlier, promised to look into the previous cases once he has re-established a disciplinary committee. Fecofa had been under a Fifa-appointed normalisation committee from 2023 until his election.

“We will make sure that no one who is behaving like this will be involved in football in this country,” he said. “It’s an absolute priority for us. You cannot accept your country’s name being linked with this kind of behaviour.”

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.