An analysis
Football stakeholders on Saturday turned another page in the annals of the national game by ushering in a new set of officials to run it.
At the elective congress Saturday, long time staff Kemo Ceesay who recently retired as finance director won a keenly-contested and widely-followed election with a clear majority that surprised many who thought it would be a tight race between him and Musa Jammeh who was backed by outgoing president Lamin Bajo.
Ceesay polled 41 votes, a little more than the threshold required to avoid a second round. But his tally was five votes more than the combined votes of his two opponents, Jammeh 24, and Kamaso 12.
Football politics like conventional national politics is full of intrigues. But that is where the similarity ends.
Whereas everyone with the required age can vote in national elections, in football, only those who are members of the federation, represented by 77 delegates, can vote. They come from clubs, regional football associations and allied associations.
All three presidential candidates submitted a list of aspirants for other executive positions and in most cases those in the list of the winning presidential candidate get elected unopposed as in the case of Kemo, with only one exception, the referees representative which his team lost to Assan Cham, who came from Musa Jammeh’s team.
The three campaigns generated heated debated and sometimes controversial talking points and point scoring.
While the charismatic Sadibou Kamaso commanded popular appeal among the general public, with a vision widely seen as the solution for modern football administration, his popularity among the actual stakeholders did not match his street appeal. He was always regarded as the minnow among the three in terms of support among the stakeholders. He however manifested enough courage and won great admiration in his attempt to “restore confidence” in Gambian football.
The FalconZ campaign of Musa Jammeh was not only late, but also relied heavily on the strength and connections of the outgoing president Bajo and his team.
The soft spoken and reserved soldier has a strong football credential from being national team player to team owner, but his campaign to continue the success of the Bajo regime failed to attract many stakeholders who viewed him as a planted proxy to continue the influence of Bajo, Bakary Jammeh and company. In any case, if Musa Jammeh gained anything from the backing, support and assistance of Team Kaba, he equally inherited any sins committed by the team. His 24 votes came as a big surprise with all the hype surrounding incumbency backing. His campaign was shocked to realise that the stakeholders have shifted their loyalties once it is established that Team Kaba is definitely going away.
For Kemo Ceesay, the man who called himself “The Coach”, his victory was the fruit of a long planted tree waiting to germinate. Being at the centre of so many previous GFF electioneering processes – from both opposition and incumbent campaigns – Kemo mastered the art and knows his way through the stakeholders from the clubs to the regions. His careful selection of an executive team also paid off because most members of his team are themselves stakeholders or connected to many. His ability to turn powerful stakeholders previously close to Bajo to his side proved crucial.