Capacity building was one key areas the Gambia Football Federation invested its resources and energies on in 2015. This was captured in the GFF president's report delivered at the Annual General Meeting recently.
Football administrators, coaches, referees and medic however, all received capacity building training, to bridge the deficiency gap in the administration of the game in a country ever striving to make a mark at senior level football.
Speaking at AGM, Lamin Kaba Bajo said capacity building was key in his development agenda for 2015 and will be in coming years because football need qualified people to manage in all facets. He added that there have been very few trained personnel to take charge thus impeding the growth of the game which is why his executive invested massively to build the capacities of stakeholders within the game.
The GFF president said that they have created the opportunity for the secretary general and his deputy to undergo courses that will empower them in the delivery of their work.
“This was why we sent the secretary general to Ghana on attachment to the Ghana Football Association. He spent two weeks there. We also sent the deputy secretary general to study human resource management at the Management Development Institute (MDI),” Kaba said.
He also revealed that staff under the finance department also received long-term training on managing finance coupled with workshops and seminars attended by other staff with FIFA and CAF.
In terms of technical development, the GFF, Kaba said were able to give coach education to over 300 (three hundred) coaches have had training at various levels. He said they have within 2015 trained over 160 (one hundred and sixty coaches) on the foundation level of coaching (D-License).
“At high level coaching, we are proud to have given 137 (one hundred and thirty-seven) coaches license, seventy-five (75) receiving C-License and forty-two (42) receiving the B-License.
“Refereeing which has remains Gambia’s pride in football also saw some capacity building trainings. Counting on the successes of Bakary Papa Gassama in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the GFF wants to breed more of the Niumi born referee,” Kaba said, “by training more and more referees thus a total of eighty-four (84) referees were given the first stage of training. These trainings were held in four administrative regions names; Upper, Central, Lower River Region and North Bank Region.”
He added: “The GFF in its bid to strengthen the pool of referees refereeing at high level hosted an elite referee’s course for thirty (30) referees within the country. Aside that, women referees such as Isatou Touray, Isatou Njie and Abbie Ceesay were all exposed to international referees courses organized by CAF and FIFA while Momodou Taal and Bakary Papa Gassama also attended higher level trainings in refereeing.”
The GFF president also revealed that his committee were cognizant of the fact that injuries are an impediment in the players development pathway thus the medical committee conducted sports medicine training for First Aid providers at regional level.
The training according to the president was hosted at Central River Region and participants were chosen from the provinces.