President Jammeh’s generosity to female U-17 is a way of promoting football but…

Musa Fatty: The author and publisher of this sport blog

The magnificent gesture extended by President of the Republic of The Gambia, His Excellency-Sheikh Prof Alh Dr. Yahy A.J.J Jammeh to the female U-17 national team by giving D100, 000 to each player, D50, 000 to the technical team as well as D10, 000 and 5000 monthly salaries to the coach and players respectively, who participated in the recently concluded U-17 World Cup in Azerbaijan, is one of the quickest possible ways to improve both female and male football in the country.

But however, it can also lead to the total failure of female football in the nearest future if the authorities responsible for our Gambia football affair misinterpreted the initiative of the president by wrongly selecting the unfit and underperform players in the next selection campaign of female national teams, because every one will like his/her daughter to grape President Jammeh’ one hundred thousand (D100, 000) or even more in the subsequent tournaments if Gambia qualified for.

Even though the Female U-17 team’s performance in the Azerbaijan tournament was not the least impressive after conceding twenty seven goals in group stages and only cancel two goals out of three matches and return home with twenty five goals. The president still continues to express his appreciation to the team’s performances, and described their group as the group of death comprises of North Korea, America and France.

Delivering a speech last Friday at the State House, the president described the performance of the girls in the world cup as a victory. “The fact is that not many people know what a victory real is, for Gambia being the smallest and the poorest country in the tournament to score goals against the team that won the tournament is definitely a victory for The Gambia”.

This type of gesture always serve as a motivations for youths of the country to actively participate in sports more special the country most dominated sport football. His valuable contribution in sports does not only stop in football, but also in Golf as he one sponsored an international golf tournament in 2010 won by a Gambian who was rewarded with some of $10,000, as well as in the wrestling arena.

When president Jammeh rewarded the U-17 female team after winning the Algeria tournament, that make every able youth man of the nation to better prepare of being part of the next national team in other to grape the future surprise. As a result of that, there were many omissions of players who won the tournament in Algeria from the team that should represent the country in the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria by the selection committee, giving chance to others who were not well equipped for the championship in Nigeria just to grape President Jammeh’s surprise.

As the defending champions of Africa in the Nigeria World Cup, Gambia served as a treat to the other group members before our first game. Our treat to the other group members does not last longer, when the darling scorpions play and woeful lost their first opening game. The failure we have in the tournament should serve as an eye opener for the authorities running the affairs of our football. Interestingly the authorities in concern for the football of The Gambia attributed our failure to the MRI test.

But the fact was that MRI was not the factor of our failure, instead wrong people were selected by the selection committee in other to please other people who were not in the Algeria trip. The fact of the matter is nepotism and favoritism should not be least encourage by the people selecting our national team only for their best interest on the expense of the nation. I believe one thing for certain that if Gambian teams continue to bring or make glory in the world sporting arena, more and more of such nature will be doing by President at any time.

It could be recalled that when The Gambia U-17 male team won the African Youth Championship tournament in Algeria in the final  with the host country Algeria with an empathic 3-1 victory before thousands of their home fans. President Jammeh better know to be the man of surprise sheared D28 million dalasis among the players and the technical staff travel with the team to the tournament. Each player in the starting fine up of the final in Algeria got one million dalasis and the substitute players on the each was rewarded with a half a million dalasis, plus all the technical staff and team medics.

This preceded first one million dalasis for the first U-17 male team that hosted the 2005 African Youth Championship in Banjul for been the first country to host the tournament and won their first opening game in the history of the tournament. It all started in the Peace Tournament organized by the president himself in collaboration with Gambia Football Association as part of event marking the tenth year anniversary of the July 22^nd revolution, were counties in the sub-region where invited to take part in the tournament, which served as a fitness ground for the then U-17 national team before hosting the 2005 youth championship.