Gambia: Sports Minister – Let’s Put Controversy Behind Us And Look Forward to the Future

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

Babucarr Camara

23 June 2011

The Honourable minister of Youth and Sports, Sheriff ML Gomez has called on all stakeholders in football to put all hands on deck in order for the country to secure its dreams of qualifying for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations to be co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea and 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

Minister Gomez was speaking to the press at his office in Banjul on Wednesday reacting to the recent war of words that broke out between the players of the national team, the team administrator of and the ministry of youth and sports. A disappointed Gomez who started by congratulating the team for securing a victory in the recent test game against Gabon opined though the controversy brought to light many of the things they didn’t know about before, he doesn’t think neither the ministry nor the team deserved that.

“As the minister of Youth and Sports with all that has been happening in the aftermath of the Gambia’s win over Gabon, I don’t think I should sit and didn’t have my say on it. Yes, I am very much disappointed because the victory should be for the whole country and it should rejuvinate our hopes of making qualification to the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2014 World Cup and as a country, we will be able to qualify the team or die trying because that is what the country deserves.

“Stakeholders in football have their various jobs to do for the team to make qualification for this is critical and we must do it otherwise it will be difficult for us to make sure of qualification.” According to the honourable minister, the next two qualification games are crucial for the country as they are must win games in order for us to stand any chance of qualifying. “The next two (qualification) games are critical because we must win those games in order to qualify. So I want to call on all Gambians to put all hands on deck to ensure qualification and we are counting on every individual residing in the Gambia but it must not be done in bad feeling.

“I want to make it very clear that we can’t give what we cannot but we will give what we can even if it will take us giving one thousand euro as allowances (to each player) but issues of allowances should come last. What is critical is the issue of ticketing and how the team flies out for matches because that is what needs to be done first in order to make sure that the team qualifies for the 2012 and 2014 competitions” Gomez concluded.

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