A two-day Executive Committee and Staff retreat organised by the leadership of The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) is currently underway at the Football Hotel in Old Yundum.
The aim of the retreat is to take a step back from the day-to-day work of the Federation and to think critically on how to rejuvenate the organisation, get everyone committed to a unified purpose, set goals for the upcoming year, and build bonds between the executive and the secretariat staff. It is also meant to talk about our work, achievements, challenges and chatter a way forward for the development of football in The Gambia.
As part of the retreat, there will be a presentation by the Executive Committee members on the general overview of the Executive and staff roles as well as their responsibilities. The various Departments and Unit Heads will also present on their department’s roles and responsibilities, make critical analysis of their department’s challenges, achievements and the way forward.
In his opening remarks, the President of the Federation, Mr. Lamin Kaba Bajo said the retreat is the first of its kind in the history of the GFF. “The Gambia Football Federation is organising a programme of this nature for the first time to have the Exco and staff sit, discuss and chat the way forward for football development in the country. At our fifth year, it is just timely to look into the Federation through the staff,” he emphasised.
He described how the running of football in the country is now more complex than ever before. “The management of football is more difficult now than few years before because the expectation is high, the awareness is also higher. Thus, the running of football needs lots of efforts and sacrifices and is the responsibility of the Executive to see that things are done in the right way to meet the expectations of our stakeholders.”
President Bajo said a lot has been achieved during his tenure in office and they will continue to deliver as expected. “A lot have been achieved from 2014 to date. First is the place we are converging, we would be using other hotels to do this retreat otherwise. In football development, the Technical Department have implemented a lot of programmes in terms of grassroots football. The Super Nawettan is now expanded to 20 teams because it needs a national character, all the regions did there regional leagues, we can say this year’s national league was the most competitive, women’s football and infrastructural development is also at an all-time high but the common football fan will only see the results of the Scorpions,” he lamented.
“However, the GFF is working tirelessly to make sure that this is achieved because currently the various national teams are training, the CHAN team is preparing for the WAFU Championship and will be playing a friendly with counterparts from Senegal. The men’s U-17 and the women’s U-20 are also training and preparing for friendlies against Guinea Bissau and Sierra Leone respectively just to prepare well for their respective competitions.”
Kaba Bajo further assured the staff of his leadership’s continues support to their welfare and development. “The Exco will continue to support the staff to develop themselves. In 2019 alone, there is an increase staff of various departments just to strengthen the productivity of the staff.”
