…declares KM regional elections illegal
The Gambia Football Federation GFF has suspended Bakary Paco Dampha, the president of the KM regional football association, KMRFA from his membership as GFF executive member. According to reliable sources the Football House blamed Dampha of obstructing a GFF scheduled match in contravention of his position as an executive member of the federation.
The Standard has also being reliably informed that the GFF had also written a letter to the KMRFA declaring that it does not recognise the executive committee because, the elections that brought them into power was conducted outside the prescribed laws in their own constitution. It has been reported that the GFF had called for a proper election procedure to be followed after key stakeholders filed a petition complaining that they were not adequately noticed about the election among other grievances but the regional FA went ahead to hold it elections in contravention of their own constitution.
However the regional FA meanwhile has charged that GFF’s accusation does not hold water and smacks of double standard alleging that the same method of election using similar time frame took place elsewhere in other regions and that they are being single out because the GFF considered them to be opposition. Mr Dampha meanwhile has called his suspension as politically motivated. ”This incident they accused me of obstruction in fact happened well before our congress why was their suspension not done then, but only after our congress and our election,” he asked.
Independent observers who spoke to The Standard said whatever the case may be, the whole thing is part of the political infighting within sports especially football. “The GFF is keen on having their allies in all the regional FAs while their opponents wants their own allies in there. There is more to this than a simple case of breach of rules. This is the sorry state of our football. Infighting and infighting that is why the national team will never succeed,” said a rather more cynical observer.
