With respect to Messrs Litmanen and Best,
there’s plainly no contest: Weah and Liberia
represent football’s widest chasm in ability.
He was the world’s best player. They were far
from the world’s best side. Later in his career,
Liberia reached their highest FIFA ranking
of 66th – their average placing without him
is 130th. Their Africa Cup of Nations record
reads zero qualifications before Weah came
along; two when he was playing and zero
since, despite the tournament’s expansion.
The World Cup was elusive. Their Italia 90
bid kicked off with young Weah scoring in his
country’s first qualifying victory a few days
after making his Monaco debut, but in a pool
that featured 12 games and 13 goals, Liberia
finished behind Egypt, who would then join
the English, Irish and Dutch in the bleakest
group stage in competition history. After that,
Liberia were defeated by civil war for USA 94
and, more prosaically, by Tunisia ahead of
France 98. They were set to reach the 2002
edition but, sidetracked by rare success in
their concurrent AFCON qualifying campaign,
faltered late on and ended one point behind
the star-studded Nigeria generation of Kanu,
Okocha, Yobo & Co.
In the aptly-named Lone Stars’ only other
fruitful campaign, Weah funded, organised
and played in all seven meaningful fixtures,
despite a busy European schedule. The year?- Truly, there was nothing he couldn’t do.
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“I DIDN’T LEAVE MILAN, AND
SACRIFICE £1.4M, TO BE TOLD
TO SHUT UP AND F**K OFF”
sued for damages and defamation, but it
was wildly out of character for Weah – so
much so, FIFA gave him their Fair Play Award
weeks later. Context can be instructive: just
a few days before headbutting Costa, UEFA
president Lennart Johansson had recollected
a meeting with South African administrators
and declared, “It’s dark when they sit down
together... ‘I thought, ‘If this lot get in a bad
mood, it won’t be funny’.” This prompted
a UEFA suit to explain his “joking manner”
and Johansson to give the immortal apologia,
“I cannot recall using the term ‘blackie’ but
on the other hand I can’t exclude it.”
Weah’s hefty ban, and Milan’s contrivance
to finish 11th and 10th between Scudetti,
meant he didn’t appear in the Champions
League again until November 1999, against
Galatasaray. He scored, of course, but that
would be his final outing in Europe.
Unwanted by Milan boss Alberto Zaccheroni
and barred from joining rivals Roma, Weah
went on loan to Chelsea and turbocharged
his tradition of fast starts by scoring a debut
winner against Tottenham. He threw himself
into English culture, quickly making friends,
contributing to Chelsea’s execrable FA Cup
final song and wearing the trophy lid on his
head after playing all bar two minutes of the
Blues’ Wembley win over Aston Villa.
His next spell, at Manchester City, was less
successful. Even at 33 he represented a coup,
City having been in the third tier two seasons
previous. Immediately injuring Manchester
United’s Denis Irwin in his own testimonial
Clockwise from top
“No Lara, this is how
to shoot”; lifting the
FA Cup with Chelsea;
George became the
president of LiberiaFourFourTwo June 2022 51GEORGE
WEAHmust have pleased a few fans, but after 10
weeks Weah was gone, collecting £500,000
in severance on top of £250,000 in wages.
“I sacrificed £1.4m from Milan to come here,”
read an extraordinary statement. “I didn’t
leave that for someone to tell me to shut up
and f**k off.” He moved to Marseille, while
City were relegated.
Following a stint in Abu Dhabi, Weah retired
and took the obvious next step: running his
country. This time, success wasn’t instant.
Running for the presidency in 2005 brought
defeat and claims of political naïveté – he’d
lost to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, an economist
who studied at Harvard, worked for the World
Bank and later won a Nobel Peace Prize – so
Weah earned a high-school diploma in 2006,
aged 40, then collected a Bachelor’s degree
in business management and a Master’s in
public administration. He lost again in 2011,
but was finally elected to the senate in 2014
and, despite rarely attending parliament and
neither introducing nor co-sponsoring any
legislation, became president in 2018.
President Weah is popular among Liberia’s
young electorate – especially after offering
free university tuition – but has faced criticism
for prioritising his own former neighbourhood,
delivering on a meagre eight per cent of his
manifesto promises in the first three years of
his tenure, and for generally being a bit, well,
‘celeb’. He has also released four songs since
becoming president, returned to the national
team in his 50s for a friendly against Nigeria
in order to retire his No.14 shirt, and takes
part in regular kickabouts where no one dares
tackle him (or, possibly, just can’t).
Still, it’s not the first time he has controlled
Liberia’s destiny. “I single-handedly sponsor
the national team without any government
assistance,” Weah told FFT in 1996. “I buy
the playing gear, return international airfare
for European-based players, and pay match
bonuses.” Team-mates could also stay in his
Monrovia hotel before matches.