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Momodou
Denmark
11659 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Jun 2010 : 18:58:40
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Dailynews Editorial: Is the National Team Coach paid 12000 Euros Monthly?
We like many listeners to the West Coast Radio sports file programme were stunned by the revelation that the coach of the senior national team, Paul Put, is paid twelve thousand Euros (12000 euros) over four hundred and forty thousand dalasis(D440,000). This issue was the subject of a heated debate at the National Assembly some time last year. The matter could not come to rest at the time because the minister of Youth and Sports asked parliamentarians to give him time to report back to them. The minister could not even tell the house from which vote the coach was being paid but that after consultations with relevant stakeholders he was duly informed that the coach’s salary should not be made public. Now that the coach’s salary is revealed the unanswered question is who is footing the bill?
If confirmed this makes Paul Put the highest paid expatriate engaged by the Gambia Government. This definitely beats our imagination as football in particular and sports in general cannot be our priority at this stage of our development. We are told on a number of occasions that education, Health, agriculture and infrastructural development are our priorities. Football is undoubtedly the most popular sport on the planet earth but to what extent. If we were investing in sports to build capacity it would be a different story. How far would this amount have gone to train Gambians both locally and internationally to shoulder this responsibility? Or how far would it have gone to improve our sporting infrastructure?
Gambians and indeed Africans have a lot to learn from the ongoing FIFA World Cup being hosted by South Africa and played in Africa for the first time in the tournament’s history. There are six African representatives in this tournament with only one African coach, the Algerian. Why can’t Africa take care of her own affairs? We are sure that no African coach will ever dream coaching anywhere outside Africa. The reasons are many and varied and therefore not within the scope of this editorial to delve into all those. Suffice it to say that charity begins at home.
We would infact go further to argue that Gambians and by extension Africans are not short of the talents to do this job. A case in point is the situation Nigeria is finding herself in. Here was a coach that helped his country to qualify for both the Cup of Nations and the World Cup finals only to be replaced by a European coach immediately after the Cup of Nations, three to four months before the World Cup finals, because he failed to reach the finals of that competition. Infact the pre-tournament target set for Coach Shaibo Amadou by the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) was to reach the semi final stage. Despite achieving this goal he could not escape being sacked. The NFA owes coach Amadou not only an apology but to restore him as coach of the national team and pay him all his benefits and indeed damages.
In the same radio talk show quoted above a panelist bemoaned African Football Association’s attitude of trying to take short cuts to achieving success in football. Football according to him is not a sprint but a marathon race. We cannot agree more with this assertion. In most cases when we fail to achieve any success with the so-called European coaches we revert to our local ones. This is ridiculous, isn’t it? What a waste of time and resources. The worst case scenario is while these European coaches are at the helm home-grown technicians are no where seen working with them atleast in the spirit of continuity. In the event that these foreign coaches leave our shores heaven knows for whatever reasons we are forced to go back to the drawing board.
Paying exorbitant amounts of money to foreign coaches to bring football glory to the Gambia or any other African Country is untenable. To do so the Gambia or any other African country will have her priorities wronged.
Source: Dailynews
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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