Following the Gabonese national team players’ incidence at the Banjul international Airport barely hours before kick off for the Gambia’s return leg to Gabon in Match Day Four of the Afcon Qualifiers, The President of The Gambia Football Federation Lamin Kaba Bajo has made a rundown of facts in chronological order at a Media briefing held on Thursday 19th November 2020 at the Football House in Kanifing.
Mr Bajo first registered his disappointment in the way the Panthers entered into the country following constant change of their itinerary and schedules on several occasions. The incident at the Banjul International Airport according to Mr Bajo is uncalled for and Gabon’s attitude towards the officials is unprofessional and thus the GFF had nothing to do with the incident. “The purpose of this Press Conference is to clarify our position on the avoidable incident between the Gabonese National team delegation and the Public Health Officials at the Banjul International Airport on the eve of our African Cup of Nations Match against Gabon last Monday. A lot has been said on the matter that has generated massive international media attention most of whom relied on the version of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. As you are all aware CAF has referred the matter to its disciplinary Committee for investigations. It is against this backdrop that we call on this Press Conference to make our position clear otherwise we would have waited for the CAF investigations”.
Mr Bajo said “during the pandemic, countries have their standard practice when someone is entering the country. On top of that the Confederation of African Football has adopted its own requirements with regard to Covid -19 test in line with FIFA standards and protocols. CAF rule says that any individual who is departing from a country or transiting from an area with Covid-19 community transmission status must produce confirmation of PCR Test result conducted not earlier than 72 hours before departure. The new rule subjects delegation and match Officials, match appointees to another mandatory PCR test that should be conducted not earlier than 48 hours before the match and participants access to the stadium. It is as a result of these rules that every member of our delegation flew into Gabon on time with negative Covid-19 test but even with that they were subjected to two separates test at the Airport and the Hotel. During the test at the Hotel, our player Sulayman Marreh was said to be tested positive and is still in Libreville”
Mr Bajo continued “I want to state that the Gambia Football Federation had on numerous occasions attempted to ensure the cooperation of its Gabonese partners to communicate their arrival information to make sure that all the necessary arrangements were made for their smooth transport from the Airport and throughout their stay in the country but all efforts proved futile”. Mr Bajo clarified to be on record that “their advance party team, Ambassador or their Sport Minister’s arrival details were not communicated to us and we were not aware of them arriving into the country” He said the Ambassador came into the country without the notice of the GFF so also was the Minister without the notice to the GFF. “So they couldn’t be accorded the necessary protocols and worse of all the advance party who came to the country to prepare the grounds for the match also came in but never contacted the GFF. They did everything on their own without consulting us which is unprecedented in football“.
Further explaining the unfolding events Mr Bajo said the Gabonese Officials abandoned the hosts vehicles and protocols and did their own arrangements without consulting the GFF. “The first date been announced for their arrival was the early hours of 14th November which is on record. It was later changed to the 15th at 8pm and until 9:35pm we never had any communication from them”. Bajo said the GFF General Secretary was instructed to write to CAF about the situation and to further “notify CAF about our frustrations for the Gabonese delegation not communicating their arrival time because we are trying to avoid the possibility of any laps on our side“.
“One thing I want to correct is that we have informed Gabon as early as 7th of November that we have chartered a special flight for our boys. We have given them five days ample time before the match. But they did not communicate to us. The Emails are all copied to CAF. So you can see we had a rough start with them, all the records are here because we reported every matter to CAF to be on record”.
After intermittent change of schedule, Mr Bajo said the Gabonese Team arrived in the country at 23:55PM (5 minutes to Mid Night) “as opposed to the claim by my colleague who said they arrived after at 11:45pm. In fact they sneak in without us noticing them”.
On the circumstances that occurred at the Banjul International Airport upon their arrival, Mr Bajo explained that the GFF does not have any hand in the Airport protocols since “it is not our area of jurisdiction“. He said upon the arrival of the team and officials, the Gambia Health Officials at the Airport began their job. “As per the information we received from the Health Officials, all other passengers must undergo or show their Covid-19 test certificate which must be negative and not earlier than 72 hours. We understand they refused to hand over their documents“.
Mr Bajo described the attitude of the Officials as an insult to our sovereignty and the laws of the Gambia. “It never happened anywhere“. He recalled that the first batch of the Gambian team that arrived in Libreville for Match Day Three leg in Franceville were subjected to a test upon arrival at the Libreville Airport. “Our team complied very well and again was tested for another time at their hotel“.
Mr Bajo said the decision of the Public Health Officers is their prerogative, a regulation that everyone must complied to without exception.
He said the Airport fiasco was settled out by the Ambassador and the Sport Minister who strongly appealed to have the team released to go to their hotel where the tests would be conducted. “But to add salt to injury is when they refused to be tested again even at the hotel and that brought our suspicion“.
He denied claims by his Gabonese counterpart that a Member of the GFF Executive Committee (3rd Vice President Gen Lang Tombong Tamba) who was a former Army General was at the Banjul Airport purportedly to create issues for the visiting team. Mr Bajo appealed to the TV cameras to clearly show Gen Tamba to his counterpart so as to ascertain that he was not at the Airport at the time of their arrival. “General Tamba was enjoying his sleep at the time of their arrival and i called on him to apologize to Gen Tamba“.
On the issue of Scorpions mid fielder Sulayman Marreh, President Bajo noted that, contrary to reports that Marreh is left in isolation, GFF is in constant contact with the player but the Gabonese are playing foul on his case. “I am always in contact with Sulayman even this morning we spoke and he is in safe hands and is without any symptom“. He said Sulayman is also been connected to the Gambian community in Libreville and the government is fully been informed of the development. “Even the Gambian community in Libreville they want to denied them from reaching to Sulayman. Our Executive Committee member Numu Kunda Kanyi was to stay with Sulayman in Libreville after coming from Franceville. But guess what they did again, the connecting flight according to them was not available and we cannot take another risk of leaving Mr Kanyi there because we don’t know what will happen to him“.
We are expecting Sulayman’s test to be negative so that he can join us in the home leg but again they said he is positive. Can you imagine the strategy they played again. Sulayman’s condition is undesirable and we do not like it that way but he is safe and fine because we speak to him almost every day with the Coach, Team Manager and all of us”.
Mr Bajo finally thanked the Gambia government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports for the collaboration and commitment towards the Afcon Campaign. “We want to thank his Excellency President Adama Barrow for the moral support towards our campaign since at the Portugal camping up to now. We recognize the government’s efforts and want to thank them very well and the football family in general“, he concluded.