The regional football committees otherwise known as Regional Organising Committee (ROC) has boycotted the proposed validation of the GFA Draft Constitution, Observer Sports can reveal.

In a letter sent the GFA Normalising Committee and copied to lord mayors of Banjul and Kanifing, regional governors, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Youth and Sports and National Sports Council, the ROC premised its resolve to boycott the validation of the football association’s draft law book on the lack of constitutionality in the manner in which the entire process and demand that the FA go to congress to put its house in order.

Below we reproduce the protest letter sent to the Normalisation Committee by the ROCdated August 5th, 2012.

Re: Validation of the GFA Constitution (Our Position)

Following the receipt of your invitation notice to the validation of the Draft GFA Constitution, we hereby inform you that we the undersigned resolved not to attend the said validation meeting based on the following reasons:-

That there has never been any instance in the history of football in this country that a draft constitution is subjected to a validation using this proposed format. What he know is constitutions are ratified and adopted by congress

That we are not of the existence of any Football League Associations in the regions. What we have are Football league clubs of distinct status existing in all the regions.

That we shall never settle on anything other than going to Congress of delegates (the Supreme Authority) to decide the fate of the draft constitution as in line with standard procedure and practice.

That it is absurd to provide room for delegate of the so-called “Officially recognized Nawettan Centers” to the General Assembly. Our questions to that are: Where are those recognized Nawettan Centers? And when and where are they officially recognized and who recognized them?

As far as we are concern, Nawettan Centers are Community-run and are found in all parts of the country, associating then with representative status in national football administration should be a national consensus.

It is our belief as regions that until positive steps are directed towards issues on the table, our suspicion rate for manipulation and foul play will remain eminent.

While we assure you of our continuous collaboration, we remain yours in football.

GFA’s Response

Meanwhile, when contacted by this reporter to comment on the issue, Alhaji Omar Sey, vice chairman of the GFA Normalisation Committee, who doubles as the chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, said the reasons advanced by the ROC for boycotting the validation meeting of the draft constitution are incorrect. He also said that the ROC does not understand what is happening. “We will call a press conference to elaborate and explain what the facts are,” he added.