GFA TO BE RENAMED GAMBIA FOOTBALL FEDERATION

Observer Sports has learnt that The Gambia Football Association will have a change of name before the expiry of the mandate of the Normalisation Committee at the end of March next year.

As included in the final draft constitution of the football association which was agreed upon by FIFA, the GFA will be renamed the Gambia Football Federation. This development came after it was agreed by the Normalisation Committee and FIFA that each one of the seven regions in the country should have its own football association with the Gambia Football Federation acting as the supreme body administering the game.

Senior National Squad

This was revealed by the spokesperson of the Normalisation Committee, Alhaji Omar Sey, in the fifth and final part of his serialised exclusive interview he had with this paper at his residence in Fajara last week.

His words: “There will be a Football Association in every region in the country and they will be affiliated to the Gambia Football Federation. Now we call it the Gambia Football Federation, in the new constitution and very soon when we finish it, we will start calling it the Gambia Football Federation because it is a federation of all football associations [in the country].

“This is the new concept that we are bringing. So they will be playing the regional leagues that eventually they are the teams that will be feeding into the national leagues so that first and second will be nationalised and the third division will remain in the regions. It has to be possible because you see Ziguanchor playing in Dakar and Tamba Kunda playing in Dakar so it has to happen. [In Ghana], Asanti Kotoko goes to play in Accra and Tamale and they have first division clubs in all these places playing each other weekly.”

Sey also noted that this new system will help in the selection process of national team players in the various age group categories. He added that that would create a solid national team in a real national sense. He also revealed that though he is not blaming anyone since he himself has worked under that same structure during his time as the chairman of an interim committee, the structures used in selecting national team players are not right and this new system will help in deviating from such.

Author: Baboucarr Camara