Jonathan Bukabakwa Fifa Ban: Coach Still Training Youth
The Jonathan Bukabakwa FIFA ban bars him from all football-related activity for 20 years. Nearly three years after FIFA's decision, he is reportedly still coaching a youth team in Kinshasa, according to The Guardian, reporting this week, and an earlier investigation from Sport News Africa, published seven weeks ago.
Bukabakwa, known locally as Messi, is reportedly leading young players at FC Esperanto in Kinshasa's Limete district, according to Sport News Africa. The Guardian also reported this week that he remains in charge of a youth team there.
The available reporting does not include responses from FIFA, the Football Federation of Congo (FECOFA), or FC Esperanto. This account is built from what FIFA has published on the record, what Sport News Africa and The Guardian have documented on the ground, and where those accounts disagree.
FIFA's 20-year ban on Jonathan Bukabakwa: the timeline
FIFA's independent Ethics Committee issued its decision on October 20, 2023. The adjudicatory chamber found Bukabakwa guilty of sexually abusing a minor football player and banned him from all football-related activities for 20 years, concluding he had breached Article 24 of the Code of Ethics, the provision covering protection of a player's physical and mental integrity, according to FIFA.
The committee also fined him CHF100,000, about $112,000 per AP. FIFA's release confirms the same figure.
Bukabakwa had previously coached youth teams within the Urban Football Agreement covering the Lipopo and Malebo regions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to FIFA. He was provisionally suspended in March 2023 while the investigation continued, months ahead of the final ruling that October, AP reported.
FIFA's case did not emerge in isolation. "In particular, various football coaches of different regions and leagues in Congo were accused of having abused minor players," FIFA said, according to AP. Sport News Africa traced the case to its own investigation, which the outlet said had uncovered a network operating inside Congolese football for more than two decades, according to Sport News Africa.
Separate from FIFA's disciplinary process, Bukabakwa had also served time in custody. Sport News Africa reported he was incarcerated at Makala prison for molesting minors, and The Guardian reported he was released from prison last year, according to Sport News Africa and The Guardian.
Sport News Africa reported that Bukabakwa's history was already well known within the local football community in Lemba, the Kinshasa district where he had previously operated, according to Sport News Africa.
Jonathan Bukabakwa still coaching despite the FIFA ban
Sport News Africa says it gathered video evidence of Bukabakwa coaching a youth team at the Massamba school field in Limete, under the FC Esperanto banner, according to Sport News Africa. No further sanctions have been decided by FIFA or FECOFA against him since the ban took effect, the outlet reported.
Bukabakwa disputes ever being told about the ban. "They never told me anything," he told The Guardian. He gave Sport News Africa a similar account: "FIFA never told me anything," and, "I am not aware of anything. They never questioned me or sent me anything," according to Sport News Africa.
That account runs against FIFA's own record of the process. FIFA's 2023 statement says the terms of the ban were formally notified to Bukabakwa on the day it took effect, per FIFA. Neither outlet's reporting resolves that contradiction.
Police did visit the Massamba field at one point. Officers reportedly told him to be careful and that he "shouldn't be there," according to Sport News Africa, which does not describe what, if anything, followed that visit.
Sport News Africa also reported that Bukabakwa has paid none of the CHF100,000 fine, attributing this to a lack of financial means, per Sport News Africa. AP noted in 2023 that it was unclear whether FIFA had any mechanism to collect the fine at all.
A youth-sector worker in Lemba, near where Bukabakwa previously operated, described a broader pattern to Sport News Africa without naming specific cases: "When one of them is caught by the police, they manage to get him back into the football world afterwards," according to Sport News Africa. That is one source's characterization of a wider dynamic, not a documented account of Bukabakwa's case specifically.
What remains unanswered
The reporting is clear about what's happening on the field. It is far less clear about how, or whether, FIFA's decision reached anyone with the authority to act on it locally.
The reports reviewed for this article do not include responses from FIFA, FECOFA, or FC Esperanto addressing the gap between the notification FIFA says it issued and Bukabakwa's denial of receiving it. Current reporting does not establish whether FECOFA was formally told of the ban, whether FC Esperanto is registered with any recognized football body, or which authority has oversight of a training session on a school field like the one at Massamba.
The reports do not explain whether the decision was communicated to local football officials or whether any local body had authority over the session Sport News Africa documented on video.
What clubs, coaches, and parents can verify right now
FIFA's disciplinary decision against Bukabakwa is public record, published directly by the Ethics Committee, according to FIFA. This case shows that a published ban did not, on its own, keep him off a youth field years later.
For clubs and youth-league administrators, that means confirming a coach's current standing directly with FECOFA before assigning them to any youth team, rather than relying on reputation or a clean-looking public presence. Put any known disciplinary history in writing before it becomes a club's problem.
For parents, it means asking whether a team is formally affiliated with a recognized local league or federation. An informal or unaffiliated session, like a practice run on a school field, may sit entirely outside any federation's reporting or disciplinary chain, and a coach's continued presence at a field is not evidence that any authority has cleared or is monitoring him.
Families are unlikely to be able to confirm a coach's disciplinary status through a public database on their own. Any credible concern about a coach's history is a matter to raise with local child-protection authorities and the relevant football federation, not something to resolve through informal checking alone.
What the reporting does and does not show
FIFA's Ethics Committee formally banned Bukabakwa from all football-related activity for 20 years and fined him CHF100,000, a decision it says was delivered to him the day it took effect, according to FIFA. Sport News Africa's video evidence, and The Guardian's separate reporting this week, both place him coaching a youth team at the Massamba field under FC Esperanto, with no additional sanction recorded by FIFA or FECOFA since the ban took effect, according to Sport News Africa and The Guardian.
Bukabakwa denies ever being told about the ban, in separate comments to both outlets. That denial stands directly opposite FIFA's own account of formal notification on the day the ban took effect, and the available reporting does not resolve which version is accurate.
That contradiction, not a documented explanation, is where the current reporting on Jonathan Bukabakwa's FIFA ban ends. Coaches, clubs, and parents who treat a federation ban as an automatic safeguard should take this case as a reminder that a sanction on paper is not the same as removal from a field, and that confirming a coach's standing directly with the federation, in writing, is the check that actually protects players.