The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) has noted the resignation of the President of The Gambia Football Referees Association (GFRA) Mr. Ansumana Kinteh. In his resignation letter also copied to the GFF, Mr. Kinteh made several unsubstantiated allegations in the said letter and the GFF wishes to state without any ambiguity that his purported reasons are very dishonest and embodies all the traits of a dishonest man.
What Mr. Kinteh failed to tell the public was that he had faced a mutiny from within the people who he elected him to represent them, thus seriously undermining his authority and rendered him a toothless bull and was facing a vote of no confidence but decided to hastily resign in order to save himself from being pilloried by his people.
There is no were in the GFF constitution that gives anyone, irrespective of his or her portfolio, an automatic membership of the Refereeing Committee; that prerogative as to who serves in the sub-committees lies at the discretion of the Executive Committee. Thus, following the expiration of the first term of the current leadership, all sub-committees were dissolved and new ones were instituted following the re-election of Mr. Bajo and not only the Referees Committee but every single sub-committee has seen remarkable changes in terms of personality as we seek to break away from the past ion bringing people who are ready to serve football and not using it as a weapon to fight a personal vendetta. And isn’t it an irony that throughout his membership of the Committee, he never questioned or raised an eyebrow on Mr. Bajo’s membership and chairmanship of the Committee; why now then?
There is also no were in our Constitution that bars Mr. Bajo or any member of the GFF from serving in the Refereeing Committee and on the contrary, our President’s membership of the said Committee has been hailed by FIFA as a good example by signifying the importance that the Federation attaches to the development of referees at a recent world football gathering. Nothing could be further from the truth from Mr. Kinteh’s assertion that our referees training, education and development is anchored on the FIFA MA Course only. Through the CARM (the training Coaches, Administrators, Referees and Medics) the GFF has trained more than 500 referees in the first term of Mr. Bajo’s leadership alone and this number is across the length and breadth of the country.
There has never been a subvention from either FIFA or CAF received by the GFF and specifically meant for referees’ development. In fact even in the Forward 2.0, which will kick off this year, and which laid emphasises on referees training, it is only stated that there must be at least 10 training programmes for referees annually but not a specific amount of fund is allocated for it.
Mr. Kinteh also claimed that he had been pre-financing the payment of referees for league matches but there are no records at the GFF, up to the time of this press release, to prove that. Any decision on referees is taken by the Refereeing Committee that meets fortnightly week. Also in the GFF Constitution, any member can nominate anyone (whether you’re a member of the GFF or not) for any executive position and thus his conclusion that Mr. Alhaji Faye logically represents the URR-FA in the ExCO only exposes his ignorance and thus an inference can be drawn that he lacks basic understanding of issues.