The Gambian leader Adama Barrow has issued a directive for the payment of D38M to national team players following a consultation with the finance minister.
The Scorpions and GFF were on Tuesday embroiled in a disagreement over outstanding qualification bonuses.
“The Ministry [Sports] through the NCC has earlier today [Wednesday] paid the D38 million cheque to the Team Manager for distribution among players, coach and technical staff,” a press release from the Ministry of Sports stated.
“While the Ministry regrets the unfortunate episode, we wish to state that, qualification bonus was not arranged by the Ministry, neither included by GFF in the AFCON budget submitted due to the team’s captain request that they would prefer Diplomatic passport over monetary compensation for qualifying-a request that was granted by H.E President Barrrow,” said the release, adding that it was, therefore, surprising that after government agreeing to increase by 100% the AFCON camping allowance to 5000 euros per player and 2500 euros for technical staff and between 5000 and 10,000 for every match winning bonus, the team “insisted on economically unsustainable demands that the Ministry wasn’t privy to”.
“Nonetheless, having settled this unanticipated cost, and going into AFCON, the Ministry hopes the team will focus on the matches ahead and display respectful performance as known of them, with a view to building on the success of last AFCON,” read the release.
“While we call on the nation to continue to rally their support to the Scorpions as we wish them best of luck, we reiterate the government’s commitment to go beyond limits to support players’ needs and sports development in general,” concluded the release.
