12-year-old boy in police custody after fire incident at the Craig Bellamy Academy

The Media and Spokesperson for the Waterloo Police division have confirmed that they have in their custody a 12-year-old boy who was alleged to have set fire to the Craig Bellamy Academy at the Tombo Community, Western Rural, Sierra Leone.

Alieu Jalloh told Radio Democracy that the young man in their custody is said to have engaged in roasting cashew nuts in an open field, before they ran away after the fire grew uncontrollably, burning the bush, and some structures at the academy.

He said their next line of action is to transfer the matter to Freetown for further investigations. 

The Craig Bellamy Academy is said to be Sierra Leone’s first professional football academy run by the Craig Bellamy Foundation, an International Non-Governmental Organization, which used football as a tool to promote education, school attendance, gender, community development, and fair play. The academy is more or less a skeleton of its former self after it was closed in 2016 over financial mismanagement, lack of support, and the impacts of the Ebola epidemic which struck Sierra Leone in 2015. 

It was set up in 2008 by Welsh Footballer, Craig Bellamy, who reportedly spent over 1.4 million pounds after his visit to see a friend in 2007. Gianni Infantino criticized him after the academy’s closure, but Journalist Oliver Holt felt he made a difference at least and did not deserve that.  

Alie Kamara, one of the security guards at the academy said the facility has had fire incidents almost every year as a result of abandonment by those concerned and expressed the urgent need for support.