The Gambia Football Federation (GFF) has read comments made by Mr. Hatib Janneh with regard to the decision to lodge players of The Gambia National Team at another hotel rather than his Seaview Gardens Hotel. The GFF wishes to state on record that it is disappointed and surprised that such remarks would come from someone who has a long standing and respectable relationship with Gambian football over the years.
For the records, the GFF wants to state without any ambiguity that Ousman Drammeh, the Federation’s Procurement Officer and the man who he alleged to be involved in dodgy deals, is not in any capacity to make decisions on behalf of the GFF. He can only collect quotes in line with the GFF Procurement Rules and Regulations.
It is common knowledge that the GFA/GFF has a longstanding relationship with Seaview Garden Hotels but for Mr. Janneh to make such remarks on social media, later picked up by the Standard Newspaper which is unprofessional by a reputable newspaper to do so. The team was lodged at Metzy Hotel for the last two home games and it is 100% owned by a Gambian like him.
On two separate occasions in 2018 alone, there were very embarrassing moments for the GFF as a result of the poor standard of his hotel. In May, the Moroccan Olympic Team played two friendly matches here in Banjul with their Gambian equivalents and upon arrival, they were lodged at the Seaview Hotel at 4:00am but by 7:00am that same morning the entire delegation walked out of the hotel complaining about the poor standard ranging from food, accommodation, insufficient water supply, poor Air Conditioning and mosquitoes. For a country that has a longstanding MoU with the GFF and always give us the best possible accommodation whenever we are in Morocco, they threatened to find their own accommodation if nothing is done about it and we had to make last minute arrangements to move them to a better hotel.
In last month’s AFCON qualifiers at home to Algeria, we lodged the panel of Tunisian referees to Seaview hotel and on their first and only night there, they also threatened to walk out because of the same complains advanced by Moroccans and it was after the intervention of the same Mr. Drammeh, who assured them that the complains would be addressed for the remaining few hours they had at Seaview, then the referees agreed to return to their rooms. These issues were discussed with Mr. Janneh and he promised to address them but to date nothing is being done.
Following the appointment of Mr. Tom Saintfiet as the Head Coach, he made recommendations to change accommodation to Metzy because it has a better standard coupled with the fact that our players are the least pleased with Seaview Hotel and the complains of the Moroccan team and Tunisian referees. The GFF have a 3-Star Hotel in Old Yundum but we couldn’t lodge the team there because the Head Coach feels the Football Hotel, is not the idle place to prepare his team for such an assignment and despite our struggles with finances of recent in solely funding all our National Teams, we wouldn’t want a situation where the team would feel distracted in terms of everything they need. Thus, a decision was made to go with the Coach’s choice for accommodation.
How many times did the Scorpions camped at Seaview and they lost but he never made a negative remark? If the team was lodged there for this game as well, irrespective of the result, you can be assured that he would care less.
To conclude, Mr. Janneh claimed that in the past, he has given free accommodation and D500, 000:00 annual donation to the GFF for five consecutive years. We challenge him to prove evidence that this ever took place because there is no record, whatsoever, to confirm his claims. However, even if those claims that are clouded with doubts are true; wouldn’t offering the GFF money be considered as a bribe since the obvious intention would be to induce us to continue to lodge the team at his hotel? After all, wouldn’t it be against procurement and competition rules for the GFF to blindly stick to only one supplier or service provider?
It is still fresh in memory that exactly seven years ago, 6th October, 2011 to be precise, it is the same Seaview Gardens Hotel owned by Hatib Janneh, that denied our National Team players food because of unpaid bills and the players had to eat at their own homes before returning to camp, just two days before a crucial home AFCON qualifier to Burkina Faso. It is within the same period, he claimed to be making such gestures. This ugly incident had negative consequences on the team because it conceded a last minute equaliser by Aristide Bance to cancel Futty Danso’s 57th minute opener and the 1-1 draw all but ended Gambia’s hopes of qualifying for the 2010 Nations Cup.
