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| Hon. Alhagie Sillah |
Hon.
Alhagie Sillah has been appointed as head of a five-man Gambia Football
Federation Normalisation Committee set up by football governing body, FIFA.
The National Assembly member, who represents the Banjul
North constituency in the legislative branch of government, will head the
committee appointed by FIFA on 10 July 2014.
The former Scorpion national team player and coach will be
assisted by Mrs. Haddy Sillah-Njie, former national team basketball player with
Ba S. Jabbi, chairman of the Brufut Youth and Sports Committee, Badara Sanneh
and lawyer Legenju Vitalise serving as members in the committee.
It could be recalled that the FIFA Emergency Committee decided
two weeks ago to appoint a Normalisation Committee in accordance with article 7
par. 2 of the FIFA Statutes and to authorise the FIFA administration to
identify five persons to form such committee in order to solve the problems
faced by the Gambia Football Federation (GFF).
The Normalisation Committee will be in charge of organising
the election of a new GFF board by 15 September 2014 at the latest. As usual,
the members of the Normalisation Committee would not be allowed to run in the
election.
The appointment of the Normalisation Committee follows the
decision taken by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on 30 April 2014
to suspend GFF for two years from all CAF competitions.
CAF took the said decision after it was found that the GFF
had fielded five over-aged players during a game against Liberia in the CAF
U-20 Championship qualifiers.
In addition, CAF enquired about one of the players and it
was found that he had been previously registered with a different date of
birth. Finally, and according to CAF, suspected cases of age cheating for youth
competitions by the GFF have already occurred on numerous and repeated
occasions in recent years.
In a statement, FIFA said it was “fully supportive of the
CAF sanctions since malpractices such as fraud and age cheating have no place
in football. In addition, it appears that the current board has lost the
confidence of several major stakeholders who are playing a key role in
supporting football activities in Gambia. As such, it seems any decision taken
by the current board would be perceived as biased and therefore could only
worsen the situation.”
It is the second time in two years that the country will
head into a Normalisation after the governing body setup a similar committee to
address the crisis in Gambian football.
At the time, the Ministry of Youth and Sports dissolved the
GFA after the Scorpions’ defeat in a 2013 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier.
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