The remarkable story of Falcons Football Club of Abuko continued this week after they secured promotion to the first division for the very first time in history before even kicking a ball.
Lamin Sanneh’s charges go into today’s week 27 encounter with Steve Biko at the Late Ousman Saho football field in Yundum with the knowledge that they’ve already attained promotion to the top flight in just one and a half season in the national league pyramid. After the nullification of the last season due to the Covid19 pandemic, this is only Falcons’ first full season in the second division after securing promotion from the Kanifing regional third division two years ago.
One of the early candidates for a relegation battle, Falcons lost just twice all season and have established an unassailable 10 points lead with third place Team Rhino who can only now attain a maximum nine points from their remaining three matches.
And speaking in a post-promotion interview with The Gambia Football Federation’s in-house medium, Sanneh said his focus now shifted to winning the second division league. With Immigration, Gunjur, and Bombada to follow in from today’s match, Falcons need a minimum four more points to be crowned champions of the 16-team league.
“Falcons will now be focusing on winning their first ever league title,” said a visibly joyous Lamin Sanneh as he reflects on his side’s successful campaign. “This has been something we aspired for since the onset and we have been using different formulas before the season starts and the key formula was going through the statistics of the past season, we looked at what is realistic and not and what is achievable from the staff down to the players. So we had a short term plan, medium term plan and a long term plan. We can’t say everything was successful but we got most of it right.”
“It was a collective teamwork, the players were very hungry and very determined. There is no bad or good strategy it’s down to the players and they have stood their ground knowing it’s a young team but we saw all respect to the bigger teams because we were the underdogs. This team have been together for the past three years and thanks to the management for the belief they have in the group. From myself, the staff and players we believe in ourselves and that keep us going throughout the journey, so generally I think the feeling is good.”
Falcons will later be joined by three more teams from the second division to earn promotion to the top flight as the GFF will expand both the national first and second division leagues for the 2021/22 season. The first division will be expanded to 16 teams from 14 while the second division will be an 18-team league.
The first two teams in the 2020/21 second division will automatically promote to the first division while the third, fourth, fifth and sixth place teams will compete in a playoff and the winners also promotes to the top flight. The last two teams in the second division will also relegate to their various regional third division leagues.
This will leave the current 16-team division with 10 teams. Then, the last two from the first division will be relegated to the second tier to make it 12 teams and six teams will come from the regions to finalise the 18-team league.
The champions of Banjul, Kanifing and West Coast regions will gain automatic promotion to the second tier. The champions of the four provincial regions will be split into two groups. The two teams to win their ties will gain automatic promotion and the two losers will play a one-legged playoff and the winner becomes the third provincial team for a ticket to the second division.
Kanifing East became the first promoted second division team when they won their regional third division in a post-match penalty shootout defeat of LK Boys over the weekend. Dibba Oil has already won the LRR league while Wagadou FC also won the URR League and the finals of the NBR league will be held on 31st July 2021 between Kunta Kinteh FC of Toubakolong and River United of Farafenni.
