The Gambia beach volleyball teams that brought Gambia back into the international standing with 8 position ranking in Africa and champions of Zone II will be watching the beach volleyball Cup of Nations from home.
The 2017 finals start in Mozambique today without The Gambia due to lack of funding from government.
According to Gambia volleyball officials, they were not successful to get funding from the Ministry of Sports through the National Sports Council.”We went to the National Sports Council and the Ministry of Sports to finance this team’s trip which include only 6 people to the CAN for our maiden appearance but our proposal was not successful,” the president of GVBF was quoted as saying.
The team qualified for the finals after winning the CAVB Africa Zone II elimination round held in Banjul in February 2017. “We missed a unique opportunity; a hard-earned one and it hurts after all the sacrifices we made,” another volleyball official lamented.
When contacted, Ebou Secka, the programme manager for National Associations at the NSC on the matter said this new request by the volleyball association for funding came at a bad-time when government was not having enough money. ”It is rather unfortunate because volleyball actually has been one of the best preforming national associations in recent times. We always do our best to support them each time they have an event but this one comes at a time when money is tight generally in all areas of government as everyone knows,” Mr Secka said apologetically.
