The President of the Gambia Handball Association, Pa Kebba Jobe, has been implicated in a financial scandal after the Gambia's handball team was involved in car crash on their way from the Mali, where they participated in the just concluded Zone II Under 18 handball championship.

No casualty was reported, but several players and officials were severely injured when the vehicle in which they were travelling was involved in a near fatal accident on Tuesday  in Gikeneh village, 160 km of capital Bamako. While some injured players headed home to receive treatment, six members of the squad, including a female player, were rushed to Bamako  to receive treatment - much to the worry of their family members who stormed the National Sports Council secretariat yesterday to demand an explanation as to the cause of the accident.

The handball players blamed the accident on their under-fire president, who, according to them, had kept the money given to him by the International Handball Federation to airlift the team to Banjul and concealed the fact from them. "Our president and head of delegation to Mali is the one responsible for the gruesome incident," Omar Keita the skipper of the Gambia handball team told Observer Sports yesterday.

"He was given money by the International Hanball Federation to airlift us from Bamako to Banjul but he decided to keep the money in his and opted for a land journey." "He has always given us the impression that the trip was self-sponsored when in the reality it was the international federation that shouldered all the financial costs." "We were only given D500 (five hundred dalasise prior to our departure for the tournament and this amount was exhausted well before we reached Bamako." Gambia National Sports Council official Abdul Aziz Titao Mendy who was with the team at the time of the accident added more weight to Omar Keita's claim when he confirmed that there was foul play.

Mendy revealed that the handball boss received money from the international federation, but decided to keep quiet about it. He added that the option was given to Mr Jobe for the team to either travel by air or by land, with the cost to be borne by the international federation, but this was never made known to the council.