LFA had decided “to cease operations of football activities considering that football matches are contact sports and Ebola is spread through body contacts with an infected person,” LFA chief Musa Bility said in a statement.

Meanwhile the finance ministry in Liberia, where 127 people have died of the disease, said it had placed several senior officials under observation for three weeks after a top ministry official died from the virus.

Patrick Sawyer was on official business in Nigeria last week when he contracted the disease.

“All senior officials coming in direct or indirect contact with Mr Sawyer have been placed on the prescribed 21 days observatory surveillance,” the ministry said in a statement.

Since March, there have been 1,201 cases of Ebola and 672 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ebola can fell victims within days, causing severe fever and muscle pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in some cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.