The Late Momodou M.M. Dibba
Football and sports in general, is in mourning with the death of seasoned and diamond sharp administrator and former secretary general of The Gambia Football Association now the GFF, Alhaji Momodou MM Dibba, on Saturday. Dibba is survived by many children within and outside The Gambia. He died at the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in Banjul Saturday morning following a brief illness and was laid to rest at the Old Jeshwang Cemetery 24 hours later.
Until his death, Mr. Momodou Dibba was the president of The Gambia Draughts Federation and served as president of The Gambia National Olympic Committee for five years between 2011 and 2016 when he retired from the Olympic House. He made a name for himself during his stint as the secretary general of the then Gambia Football Association in the 1970s when Football House was based at the Box Bar Stadium in the nation’s capital Banjul.
He’s been described by many as one of the greatest, if not the greatest Secretary General in Gambian football and hailed for his hands down brilliance and great leadership in football administration. He is been credited as the man who presided over the naming of the Gambia National Football Team as Scorpions from the Gambia Eleven in the early 1980s.
Mr. Dibba was admired for his tenacity, strong character and leadership skills and an action-oriented man always willing to listen and welcomed others’ ideas. His demise has been described as a great loss to The Gambia, not only in sports administration but in every sector of our society. The GFF will forever be grateful to him for what he has done to our beautiful game.
During his tenure as president of the GNOC, he’s been credited for bringing many sports development projects to the country among which include, but not limited to, the project for the improvement of sports facilities for youth development in The Gambia; which was a D4.8 million grant agreement between The Gambia National Olympic Committee and the Japanese government in 2013. The grant was used for the purchase a sports equipment for the development of four key sports in the country namely basketball, athletics, handball and volleyball. The project was the second under his administration’s initiative dubbed the scheme for cultural grassroots projects with the first been the initial signing of a youth development project in the Kanifing Municipality of more than D2.2 million.
It was during his time as the GNOC President that The Gambia first secured direct qualifications to an Olympics Games when sprinter Suwaibou Sanneh secured a place at the 2012 London Games where he finished in the semifinals. Sanneh’s success has been attributed to the GNOC leadership’s decision to send him on a pre-Olympics training at the High Performance Training Centre in Jamaica. Ms. Gina Bass and Adama Jammeh also secured qualifications to the Rio Games last year under his administration.
Outside of the sports circle, the late Mr. Dibba, would be remembered for his time as the general manager of the defunct Gambia Cooperative Union, where he’s also been hailed for his humorous and kind heartedness. It was during his time as the Union’s boss under the PPP regime agriculture became the largest contributor to the Gambia’s workforce.
