Gambian police on Thursday arrested one Augustus Gomez for attempting to manipulate the outcome of a domestic Gambian first division match between Fortune and Marimoo Football Club. He is currently helping the police in their investigations.
Mr. Gomez approached one of the country’s top referees called Omar Sallah at the Independence Stadium in Bakau after they rounded up their training for the day requesting to talk to him. After several failed attempts, Mr. Sallah’s colleagues, who were present during the episode convinced him to listen to him in their presence.
The suspect, who came with a friend, asked Mr. Sallah with regard to information on the referee scheduled to officiate the said match, because they have an interest in the match and were offering money to manipulate the outcome of it by ensuring that there were two goals scored in the first half.
“He informed me that he works for a guy who lives in Luxemburg, whom I also spoke to and they said they are involved in match fixing and if they are interested in a match, they use money to buy referees. He wanted to know the referees for today’s match but I refused to give them any information,” Mr. Sallah told The Gambia Football Federation’s official website.
“I didn’t even give him the chance to know the officials for the match today and because there are series of claims of match manipulation, this was an opportunity for me to substantiate whether referees or players were indeed bribed. So they told me that they were going to Manjai and I offered to give them a lift in my car and went aside to speak to members of the Referees Association who gave me the go ahead to take them to the police and to their surprise, that was how I drove them to the Kairaba Police Station and handed them over to the police and they have started to talk, claiming that they have manipulated referees in our matches. They said they are involved in sports betting and are used to this and that motivated me to take them to the police.”
The President of The Gambia Football Federation (GFF), Mr. Lamin Kaba Bajo was unequivocal on his stance against match fixing, emphasising his administration’s commitment to ensure that there is no room for match fixing in our game. He added that match fixing must be eliminated anywhere that it exists.
“One of my key missions as the GFF President is to protect the integrity of Gambian football and to protect it from manipulation of matches, illegal betting and corruption. Match fixing cannot and will not be tolerated under my administration and those caught will be banned from football because they would have no place in our sport,” Mr. Bajo stressed.