Clubs from regions cannot change bases
League clubs cannot be called academies
The Gambia Football Federation’s Clubs Management meeting, which brings the FA and the league clubs together to discuss the coming new football season, took place Saturday with new rules being adopted.
In a marathon presentation to the club managers, GFF vice president and head of competition Ebou Faye disclosed that henceforth a club that qualified to the national leagues (Division one and Division Two) from the provincial regions (LRR, NBR, CRR and URR) shall remain as a regional club even when its ownership changes or it’s transferred to a new owner. “As such, the club shall remain a regional club in the region it qualified from.
This means that the club’s home matches shall continue to be scheduled in those regions they come from unless they have their own playing ground. The whole idea is to protect the regions and their clubs in the spirit of decentralisation,” Mr Faye said.
Clubs with “academy” name
Another new rule presented by Faye provided that no club will be allowed to register with the tag academy added to its name in the leagues. “Academies and clubs are different. An academy is team of young or little children so when a team graduates to any of the national leagues it cannot be called an academy. Henceforth all league clubs with the tag academy in their names should drop it and replace it with Football Club. Example Greater Tomorrow Football Club,” Mr Faye said.
Professional league
The GFF second vice president also said the much talked about professional league is proposed to commence in 2025/26 football season.
Challenges:
Mr Faye said the government support is needed to classify football as a priority investment incentives as clearly stated in the GIEPA Act of 2015.
He also cited the problem of sponsorship and investment in clubs and capacity building for clubs among other things.
Free registration
The GFF also informed the clubs that they will not be required to pay registration fees to play in the leagues as it has been the case for the last few years.
Registration for this season would be closed on the 5th of November 2023 and clubs must ensure they get all documents to be uploaded including players’ birth certificates and other details example master list of officials/players by 31 October 2023.
