FIFA appoints Normalisation Committee for Gambia

FIFA says it lacks confidence in Mustapha Kebbeh's Executive

World football governing body, FIFA, has appointed a Normalisation Committee to govern the affairs of Gambian football for the next two months.

This development comes after the FIFA Emergency Committee decided today, 10 July 2014, in accordance with article 7 par. 2 of its Statutes to authorize the government to identify five persons to form such committee in order to solve the problems faced by the Gambia Football Federation (GFF).

The five-man Normalisation Committee according to FIFA is going to be in charge of organizing 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.

It could be recalled that after 17 months of a painstaking normalization process, a new president was elected to run Gambian football as Mustapha Kebbeh emerged as winner of the Gambia Football Federation presidential elections last year.

But ten months into his administration, the country was banned for two years by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for age cheating, after Gambia fielded in five overage players in a 2015 African U-20 Championship qualifier against Liberia.

FIFA said in a statement: “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.”

“During both the CAF Executive Committee meeting held on 30 April 2014 and the CAF Congress that took place on 9 June 2014, CAF President Issa Hayatou reiterated the zero-tolerance policy for cases of fraud and stressed the need for a strict enforcement of sanctions.”

FIFA say it is fully supportive of the CAF sanctions “since malpractices such as fraud and age cheating have no place in football”.

It added that the current board has lost the confidence of several major stakeholders who are playing a major role in supporting football activities in Gambia and as such “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.