The West African Football Union (WAFU) is an association of the football playing nations in West Africa formed in 1975. It was split by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) into Zone A and Zone B, citing “the organisational issues that faced WAFU.”
The Gambia is in Zone A together with Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Senegal, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania and Sierra Leone.
During WAFU’s second General Assembly held in February this year in the Senegalese City of Dakar, President Augustin Senghor who also doubles as the President of the Senegalese Football Association was re-elected unopposed for another four-year term.
Musa Hassan Bility (Liberia) was elected first Vice President; Ahmed Yahya (Mauritania) as second Vice President; Baboucarr Baba Diarra (Mali) third Vice President; and Lopes Manuel Nascimento (Guinea Bissau) – 4th Vice President.
Other executive members are Ms. Isha Johansen (Sierra Leone); Lamin Kaba Bajo (Gambia); Salifu Camara (Guinea), and Victor Ozorio (Cape Verde).
Gambian-born Jammeh EK Bojang is the Secretary General of WAFU and The Gambia is hosting the headquarters of this football body. The office is said to be located in Bakoteh even though not many people, including the GFF President, know about the location of the office in the country.
WAFU is an organ of CAF that came into being as a result of the need to divide the African countries into different zones so that the zones can also be busy organising football-related activities in terms of tournaments and training programmes.
“It is a privilege for The Gambia to host the headquarters and also for the secretariat to be headed by a Gambian [Jammeh EK Bojang]. It is a very important organisation as far as football and football-related activities are concerned in this part of West Africa,” said GFF President Lamin Kaba Bajo.
What is clear is that WAFU has not really been very active, considering the poor participation of countries in the last two tournaments hosted in Senegal. The last U-20 WAFU tournament held in St. Louis, Senegal was attended by only four countries out of the nine countries.
Well, Bajo shared the same view and told Observer Sports that there is the need to put the Union on its proper footing so that it can better serve the membership.
The Confederation of African Football gives an annual subvention for the upkeep of the secretariat and running of certain programmes. However, WAFU Executive Member Bajo said, that is inadequate looking at the cost involve. “What we tasked ourselves [WAFU members] is to embark on more serious fundraising activities because we cannot solely rely on the CAF subvention. And unfortunately also, the membership subscriptions are not paid by members,” he further told Observer Sports.
With much more left to be achieved in terms of capacity building programmes and benefits associated with being WAFU member, the Union is therefore challenged to step up and put its house in order.
Though the Secretariat is housed in The Gambia, Bajo disclosed to Observer Sports at the time that he did not know the location of the Secretariat. “I am waiting for an invitation to go and see the office and if there is any support needed we can support.”
The need to orgnise different tournaments across the different levels is quite important, but according to Bajo, he is not expecting swift changes within a short period.
by Alieu Ceesay
