The President of the Gambia Football Federation (GFF), Lamin Kabba Bajo, said the Federation is targeting schools to scout out some raw talents in it’s effort to promote grassroots football in The Gambia.
Mr Bajo was speaking to reporters after the West Coast Region inter-academy football tournament final between KGH Sports Football Academy of Lamin and Yarambamba Football Academy of New Yundum, at the Brikama Box Bar Mini Stadium last weekend, where he also called upon young players to maintain discipline and hard work in order to achieve their dreams of becoming professional footballers.
“If you want to be like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Jatto Ceesay or Ebou Sillah, you need to work hard in order to reach the level of those players in the near future, “said Mr Bayo. Adding: “Sport is business and money, one of the fastest ways of making people rich and prominent.”
The 52 year-old GFF President revealed that the GFF is intensifying their focus on schools around the country with a widened scouting network to spot the best young talents around, as part of their efforts to promote grassroots football. Something he had promised in his election manifesto back in 2014, before being voted into the top seat vacated by the former head of the Federation, Mustapha Kebbeh. In which he said “we will encourage, advocate and implement for more grassroots football which will improve better competition, a better and expanded player pool for selection, that will definitely increase and create better results.”
He also made further pledges at the time – vowing to maintain collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MOYS), along with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MOBSE), and the School Football Associations with a national school football programme for both Boys and Girls in Lower Basic, Upper Basic and Senior Secondary Schools, which will be implemented in all the seven regions in the country. Proclaiming he aim to create a platform where youth football will be introduced to ensure and assist divisional clubs to have youth teams that will serve as a feeder to their senior teams.
This is a well meaning scheme that requires a clear and feasible methodology to scout out in all regions of the country for players from a young age to a platform where they can be trained and nurtured through well-structured stages of development before reaching the 1st division and there is no better place for this than the Academies.
Academies are very vital in the development of footballers, as they recruit, nurture and groom young talented players0 through structured programmes on technical and tactical aspects of the game through robust training sessions to not just develop their technical abilities but also give them an understanding of the different tactics used in games. Nowadays, individual weaknesses are researched ahead of time and exploited in games and thus makes it vital for players to understand the nexuses of the game from an early age
The decision to turn to schools and the grassroots in general for scouting talents is the right direction for the development of The Gambia’s football and it will not only widen the pool of players for the national team but also address other underlining issues affecting our football such as age cheating and the likes.
