By Omar Jatta

The Gambia’s U20 Youth team coach, Omar Sise has invited three youth team prodigies from Norway on trials in The Gambia. Erick  Stafford,  Isack Ceesay and Sulayman Bojang, all of Gambian parentage, have been called to train with The Gambia’s U20 team with view for selection into the team.

The teenagers took part in an open training session with the young Scorpions at the Independence Stadium, in preparations for team’s U20 African Cup Of Nations qualifier against Sierra Leone, whom they beat 2-0 away in first leg tie in Freetown a fortnight ago.

The move was made possible through the mediation of two Norwegian/Gambians, Mamadi Ceesay and Ousman Nyan, both of whom had been working tirelessly to scout out some of the best young talents in the Norwegian football ranks with Gambian heritage, and it took them a while to facilitate the move as it took several efforts to persuade the boys to commit their allegiance to The Gambia.

Mamadi Ceesay, whose son Isack is one of the three boys training with the U20s in The Gambia, believes this is a smart move by The Gambia and is trilled to have finally got the GFF to buy into the idea, having tried and failed on a number of occasions, where both him and Nyan had identified and notified the GFF about prospective players but “got no response.” H said they’ve been travelling miles around Norway on scouting trips and are hopeful if their new findings are selected to play for the U20s, they could go on to play for the senior team.

Ceesay, himself is a second generation Norwegian-Gambian, a business entrepreneur and a member of the NORGA Investment group. A group that has invested vast amount of money and resources into various sectors and communities in The Gambia in the last five years, particularly in football, where they’ve donated footballs and football materials to communities right across the country. The group is also heavily involved with Brufut United Football Club, whom they are sponsoring and currently building a multiplex arena in Brufut, which includes a Mini Football stadium, a school and a shopping Mall.

With him being influential in advocating for the idea to allow players with ancestral links to represent The Gambia, Ceesay believes the best way to recruit these players is from the early stages in their careers, possibly from the U17 to U20 and if they continue to develop and can prove themselves at senior levels, should then be given the opportunity to represent the country.

His co-scout Ousman Nyan is also a former Norwegian footballer, who was born in The Gambia and moved with his parents to Norway at the age of three, where he grew up and had played at the top level in the Norwegian football league, spanning over a decade with a brief spell at Panathinaikos in Greece. He was mostly known for his time at Norwegian side, Strømsgodset, for whom he made his debut as a sixteen year old and went on to make 220 career appearances for, in two separate spells.

All these three prodigious players despite being born in Norway. They are qualified to represent The Gambia through the Parent/Grandparent rule introduced by FIFA in 2004 after implementing a series of significant changes to the rules covering international football eligibility, where more stringent rules with a set of additional requirements were introduced to determine which country a player may represent in international football.

It is not uncommon for national team managers and scouts to attempt to persuade players into changing their football nationalities and one country who have benefitted immensely from this rule is Cape Verde, with almost more than a quarter of it’s senior national team players born or raised in Portugal but eligible to play for the Island nation through family ties. Both Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria and Algeria to name a few have all recruited players through the rule, so Gambia should not be any exception in my view. Even bigger football power houses like England who had Owen Hargreaves in their team despite being born in Canada and also having played for Wales at youth level, one of the three countries he was eligible to represent.

Before the clamp down players have shifted allegiances freely from country to country with some players representing more than one country during their career. There was also a growing trend in some countries, where players born and raised in Brazil and other places were naturalised and played for countries where they had no apparent ancestral links. To stop these trends, a FIFA emergency committee ruled that players must be able to demonstrate a “clear connection” to a country that they had not been born in but wished to represent. The rule explicitly stated that, in such scenarios, the player must have at least one parent or grandparent who was born in that country, or the player must have been resident in that country for at least two years. The rule also permits a player to represent one country at youth international level and another at senior international level, provided that the player applied before their 21st birthday.

In an interview with the Sweden base Gambian Radio host and Football Podcaster, Buba Jallow Fallaboweh, Mamadi praised the Gambia’s U20 coach, Omar Sise for his teams recent successes but he also called on him to widen his scouting networks within the Gambia and beyond saying:

“This is the first time Gambia has invited players from abroad into the youth teams and I believe this is the way forward.

” If the scouts find a talented young player, it doesn’t mean he has to select them but can give them a chance to prove themselves and they may be better than some of the players he already has in the team.”

“National teams should always be the best possible team at all times and there is no way around that.

“This will increase competition in the national team and i believe it should be that way, there should be competition for places in the team rather than having one player playing for ten years in the team regardless of performance.

Ceesay describe the three boys on trials with the U20 as very good talents and has high hopes in Eriik Stafford in particular, who plays for Norwegian Top League side Sarpsborg 08, whom he said, accredits his athletism to his Gambian genes and thus he is thrilled to be given the opportunity to play for the country. He has likened this attributes to that of the current Norwegian forward Joshua King who plays for Premier League side, Bournemouth FC.

“He is a very good player technically, he is very similar to joshua King.”

“He had some injury problems before that held him a little but now he is back and is scoring lot of goals for his youth team,” he said.

“If Gambia had not taken him I believe it won’t be long before Norway takes him, he has a huge potential.

He is also very impressed with Sulayman Bojang, whom he said has already been contacted by the Norway officials trying to persuade him to wait a little longer before making his decision to commit to The Gambia. He is currently in the youth ranks of the Oslo based Norwegian Second Division side Skeid FC, whilst his son Isack plays for third Division side Hasle-Loren in Oslo, Norway.

He believes The Gambia needs these sort of players and one player who had shifted allegiance, Modou Barrow despite the opportunity to join the Swedish national team, need to be surrounded with players who are technically on thesame or similar level to him, to help releive the pressure on his young shoulders.

“Barrow is a very good player but may there is too much pressure on him, he needs players who are on thesame level to sorruound him,” said Mr Cessay.

He further shared his believe that there is a new crop teenage prodigies in Europe with family ties to The gambia who would like to would like to commit their allegiance to The Gambia as they feel more patriotic towards Gambia than the previous generations.

“I know a lot of players who now feel more patriotic to The Gambia than in the past generations,” he said.

“Even now I know a lot former players in Norway who are regretting why they didn’t chose to play for The Gambia.

Ceesay also said he is hopeful this could be the start of a new trend in exploring the avenues he believe give Gambian football the boost it needs, especially in attacking areas where he thinks The gambia has been struggling for out and out goal scorers.