FIFA extends ban on DR Congo coach to 2048 after he kept coaching children

FIFA has extended the ban on Jonathan Bukabakwa, a coach from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who is known as "Messi", by five years, to 2048. The world football body says he kept coaching young players while he was suspended, and it has ordered him to pay an extra fine of $15,000.

FIFA's ethics committee first banned him for 20 years on 18 October 2023, after finding that he had sexually abused a minor. The ethics committee is the part of FIFA that judges serious misconduct off the pitch. Congolese authorities had also convicted him of sexually abusing minors. He was released from prison in 2025, and he denies the allegations against him.

The Congolese football federation, known as Fecofa, first suspended him in November 2022. That followed media reports of widespread alleged sexual abuse in DR Congo football. Even so, he continued to work with young players. The Guardian reported in August that he was still training children, and it published video of him coaching young players at Esperanto FC in Kinshasa's Limete district.

FIFA has now fined Fecofa and Racing Club Baki $50,000 each. Both were found to have failed to follow the 2023 ban. Fecofa has also been told to set up a full programme of education, compliance and monitoring. That programme is meant to cover its officials, its affiliated clubs and its registered members, so that a ban means something on the ground.

Bukabakwa has said he was never told about the FIFA ban. He also says FIFA never questioned or contacted him. The Guardian has reported his account in full.

The federation's own leadership has changed recently. FIFA had appointed a normalisation committee, a temporary group that takes over running a federation when its own leaders are removed, to run Fecofa from 2023. In May 2026, Véron Mosengo-Omba was elected Fecofa president, ending that arrangement.

For anyone outside the sport, the basic point is simple. A football ban is only as strong as the clubs and officials who enforce it. In this case, FIFA is putting the burden on the federation to prove it can keep a banned man away from children, and to show that it will be held to account if it does not.