As The Gambia’s quest to secure a maiden AFCON appearance in 2021 continues to gather pace, the General Secretary of The Gambia Football Federation, Mr. Lamin M. Jassey, is the latest to weigh in on our Road to AFCON campaign. In this interview with www.gambiaff.org, he said it is the responsibility of the Government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports to fund the activities of the senior national team.
“National Teams are the primary responsibility of the government. The Federation coordinates the activities of National Teams on behalf of the government. Funding the activities of the national teams is the primary responsibility of governments everywhere in the world and it’s important for people to understand this. Our primary responsibility at GFF is for the promotion and development of football,” he said.
The General secretary further stated that the estimated budget for an international home and away match is about eight million dalasi (D8,000,000:00). “Football is very expensive. It will be hard to expect good results if we don’t have the financial muscles and that’s why our other programs are suffering because we had to sometimes reluctantly step in for government to fund the national team. We don’t want our national team to withdraw from international engagements because of funds although it’s not our primary responsibility, we want to keep participating and the sad thing is people will blame the GFF for the national team’s failure,” he lamented, recalling the former Government’s support to the teams and called on this Government to do the same especially for the National Teams.
“I am confident with the current crop of players, we have what it takes to qualify but there can be no room for complacency. It is a final for us and we need to win both matches handsomely to send a message to the Group D opponents,” he said in reference to our preliminaries against Djibouti.
Speaking on the Secretariat’s level of preparations ahead of the beginning of the qualifiers in October, Jassey highlighted that Football House would ensure that all the logistics, such as the air tickets, travels, visas, internal arrangements, camping and all administrative aspects are in place. However, he was quick to clarify that it should be Government’s responsibility to fund the national team.
Asked about his feelings on the recent fixtures against Djibouti and Angola, Jassey reiterated that despite the expenses and rough calendar, his team of committed departments and committees are all working tirelessly to ensure that all events are successful with support from the GFF’s Events Management Committee, the Organising Committee and the Secretariat. “Of course, organising international matches cannot be devoid of having issues; we always have issues but all the necessary arrangements are in place for better results.”
He also appealed to all stakeholders, businessmen/women, fans, media, partners and everyone to join hands in glove and support this campaign. “I have never been much hopeful. I think this is the time for our qualification. This is the time for Gambia. All we need is the commitment from government, stakeholders and prepare the players psychologically. We all have to be in it together genuinely. Let’s put a break to ‘next time’. We have now reached the destination of ‘this time. With this, I can see The Gambia in Cameroon AFCON 2021,” he affirmed.