By Lamin Cham
President Barrow will today tell the Gambia – Under 20 footballers and officials of his personal admiration for their recent success at the West African Football Union WAFU ZONE A eight-nation tourney in Liberia.
Barrow, himself a keen football fan, will also urge the GFF and its technicians to continue this winning trend.
In turn the GFF officials will share their joy with Barrow and thank him for according them audience at his level as well as allowing the First Lady to attend a recent international match. The President will be cordially invited to grace the match against Benin in the qualifiers of the African Youth championship involving the same team on Sunday.
But when those niceties are over, the GFF will also be expected to inform the President about the acute absence of government’s financial help in football.
More importantly, the GFF and the Ministry of Sports have not enjoyed a good relation since last year and observers believe both MoYS and Football House should use this forum with the President to start ironing out their differences which sometimes get embarrassingly expressed at events that are purely supposed to be national events for both of them.
This good news in our football and the high level interaction it has brought about should be used to reconcile and bring understanding between MoYS and GFF, two bodies whose objectives and aims should be the same. There should be no blame game here; they two should just embrace each other right in front of the President and start a new working relation as we all gun for more accolades. The expected successful outcome in today’s State House encounter, coming almost on the eve of an even more important match, the AYC qualifier, should be a rekindle of national cohesion; a unity in football which has suffered from so much fraction and friction in the past few years.
