Gambia: Hon. Sillah Decries Inefficient Football Administration

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Musa Ndow

28 June 2011

The National Assembly member for Banjul North, Hon. Alagie Sillah has strongly decried the recent fracas that broke out between the Gambia Football Association, members of the senior national football team and the Ministry of Youth and sports that nearly tore Gambian football apart.

The Banjul North parliamentarian said despite the millions of dalasis being spent for Gambian football to be efficient, the administrators end up running the sport like hunting and a mystery club. He added that instead of them (the sport administrators) sitting down to solve the problems within themselves they go out to expose each other using the media.

Concurring to earlier claims that ignited a brawl between The Gambia senior team players and the Sports Ministry over the untimely payment of allowances, Hon. Sillah said that allowances are supposed to be paid before the players got off for the match and not after their arrival. He said: “That does not happen to anybody, it is not a sign of respect but a sign of inefficiency and a sign of disrespect for the game, the players and the country. Look, we have to run sports as a country and not as a joke. Similar things happen when somebody went to Dakar to acquire a visa to South Africa and got stranded in Dakar, just an individual pursuing a South African visa.

“Where was the Ministry for Foreign affairs who should have done that job so efficiently and as quickly as possible? I am saying this because I want the president to know the way things are happening. I was at that place since my young age, I don’t want to get into where it looks very personal but we are the losers when it comes to the sport presently in this country. Somebody is paid over Four Hundred Thousand Dalasis and has deliberately not worked with any Gambian so that if he moves away the expertise will stay. So who are the losers? I think we have to revisit our sport and be serious with what we are doing. Because we are using the tax payers’ money to run the sports administration.”

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