A first ever national football competition in honour of the late baron Alhaji Omar Sey gets underway today when Gamtel and Marimoo faces off at Bakau’s Independence Stadium and Gambian champions Brikama United hosting The Gambia Armed Forces at the Box Bar Mini Stadium. On Wednesday, Fortune also entertains The Gambia Ports Authority in Brikama and Real de Banjul hosts Hawks in a Banjul derby to be played at the national stadium to bring the first match days in both groups to a close.
The tournament is been played by the top eight finishers in the 14-team national top flight championship who are divided into two groups of four teams each playing in a round robin format. The winners in each group will face off in the final scheduled for 3rd July, 2019 at the Independence Stadium at 8pm. The late Omar Sey tournament is conceived by the GFF Executive Committee in a way of remembering one of the icons of football development in The Gambia.
Who is Alhaji Omar Baru Sey
On the verge of becoming the President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), Alhaji Omar Baru Sey choose country first when national duty called as he was appointed as the External Affairs Minister of The Gambia by former President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara. Mr. Sey would identify Cameroonian Issa Hayatou to contest the CAF elections who would go on to head the continental Confederation for almost three decades.
He was born in Basse in the Upper River Division and brought up in Banjul where he completed his high school and later proceeded to the United States of America to pursue a degree in Industrial Phycology. After finishing his studies, he became a lecturer at the Yundum College until the late 1970s when government first created the Department of Youth and Sports when he was asked to head this Department by the then Minister for Sports Alhaji MC Cham. The late Omar Sey at this time was an active FIFA Referee playing across Africa and the world at large on both FIFA and CAF sanctioned matches.
It came in the mid-1970s when a vacancy for membership in the CAF Executive Committee was opened for affiliated members, The Gambia government through the Ministries of Youth and Sports and Foreign Affairs made efforts to have Mr. Sey elected into the Continental Committee. Former Minister of Youth and Sports MC Cham took up the initiative with support from his cabinet colleague Lamin Kiti Jabang of Foreign Affairs and approached Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara for the government to dispatch a special envoy to canvass support across Africa for support to Mr. Sey’s candidature. He later won the contest against Ckeikh Kouyateh of Mali.
He became the first Gambian to have served in the CAF Executive Committee and rose through the ranks to become the first Chairman of the CAF Referees Committee. He heightened his accolade when he went into the ranks of FIFA to become the trusted confidant of former President Joao Havelenge who later recommended him to take up the Presidency of CAF.
As the first Director of Youth and Sports in The Gambia, he introduced the decentralisation of football through a scheme called National Youth Week. After his retirement from active politics, he later became President of The Gambia Football Association in 2005 before returning to serve as Vice Chairman of a Normalisation Committee in 2012 after the dissolution of the Executive Committee by FIFA.
The late Alhaji Omar Sey joined his ancestors on Friday 2nd March 2018 at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital after a long illness and was laid to rest at the Jeshwang Cemetery with thousands of sympathisers praising the man for his selfless services to The Gambia, Africa at large, sports and humanity. He was survived by a wife, children and grandchildren.
