George Weah

George Weah is a Liberian retired footballer and politician, born in Monrovia in 1966, who served as the 25th president of Liberia from 2018 to 2024. ¹ He is the only African winner of both the Ballon d'Or and the FIFA World Player of the Year award, winning both in 1995 at AC Milan. ¹ Two independent sources document his present affiliation as Christian, after a decade in his life spent as a practising Muslim, so his data record records his faith as Christian, documented. ¹²

Weah played in Liberia, Cameroon, France — for Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain — and Italy, where at AC Milan he won the Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year in 1995, before later spells in England and the Emirates. ¹ He is the first former professional footballer to become a head of state. ¹

After an unsuccessful presidential run in 2005 and a vice-presidential run in 2011, Weah was elected senator for Montserrado County in 2014 and then president in 2017, taking office on 22 January 2018. ¹ He lost the 2023 run-off to Joseph Boakai, conceded immediately, and left office on 22 January 2024. ²

Weah's religious history is documented in two independent article traditions, and this entry records it as they give it. The English article states, citing BBC Sport, that he "practiced Islam for ten years before converting to Christianity", and its categories file him among converts to Christianity from Islam and Liberian Christians; it also notes his 2017 visit to a Nigerian pastor's church. ¹ The French article states, citing Libération, that he was born to Christian parents but converted to Islam, and afterwards returned to Christianity; that in 1995, while still a Muslim, he described himself as practising that religion and spoke of making up the Ramadan fast after his career; and that in 2019 he inaugurated an evangelical church within his residence. ² The Arabic article makes no statement of his own religion — the devoutly Christian grandmother who raised him is his family background, not his attestation — and Wikidata gives his religion as Christianity. ³⁴ His record therefore records his current affiliation as Christian, documented, with the Islamic decade documented as a period of his life. ¹²

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
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