Weah may become the first ex-athlete to rule a country

CAIRO – 12 October 2017: George Weah will be the next president of Liberia if, as several local media agree, his victory over the other candidate, Joseph Boakai, in the presidential elections is confirmed.

If his victory takes place, Weah, who starred in a long and successful sports career in Europe, will become the first former footballer to become the president of his country.

In a serious economic and social crisis caused by the Ebola epidemic of 2014, Liberia held the elections on October 10; still marked by the memory of a savage civil war that ended in 2003. Twenty candidates were running, one of them the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, while Weah is a favorite.

Although the results will not be official until October 25, several Liberian media outlets took for granted that the former player of Paris Saint-Germain and Milan, who was the first and only “Golden Ball” winner from the African continent and is remembered as one of the best footballers of the 1990s, was the winner, with an obvious majority support.