Three
times Gambia-born CAF referee of the year, Bakary Papa Gassama is among the
list of CAF preferred short list of referees for 2020 CHAN tournament in
Cameroon.
Gassama
top the merit list of video assistant referees (VAR) for the 6th edition of the
championships.
Also
in the list of referees and assistant referees is Abdul Azziz Bolel Jawo
(assistant referee) who is also on the CAF merit list nominated as assistant
referee for the Championship.
Both
Gassama and Bolel are currently in Cairo, Egypt at the invitation of the
Continental body for a preparatory Course organized by CAF ahead of 2020 Total
African Nations Championship (CHAN), Cameroon.
Gambia’s
highest standing performer and Africa’s finest Referee Bakary Papa Gassama will
be part of the panel on Video Assistant Refereeing (VAR) while Abdul Aziz Bolel
Jawo joins his colleagues as assistant referee.
The course will be on theoretical and practical basis.
The
first session of the course on Tuesday 4 February was a fitness test in which
both Gassama and Bolel made the cut to the next stage.
The
final tournament of the sixth edition of the CHAN competition designed
exclusively for players featuring in their domestic leagues will be held from 4
-25 April 2020 in the cities of Yaounde, Garoua, Douala and Limbe.
Meanwhile,
the draw for the final tournament has been fixed for Monday 17 February, at
Palais Polyvalent Des Sports de Yaoundé in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, at
19:00hrs local time.
Bakary
Papa Gassama was born 10 February 1979 in Memeh village in the North Bank
Region. He started refereeing in 2003 and became a FIFA badge holder in 2007.
Gassama
began to officiate matches at the Gambia League Championships until in 2012
when he was appointed to the Olympic Tournament in which he was the fourth
official for the gold medal match between Mexico and Brazil.
He
also served as a referee at the 2012 and 2013 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments
as well as the 2014 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers.
In
March 2013, FIFA named Gassama as one of the fifty potential referees for the
2014 World Cup. On 15 January 2014, FIFA announced that he would be one of the
25 referees for the tournament. He was
assisted by Evarist Menkouandé and Felicien Kabanda.
Gassama
officiated the third match in Group B between the Netherlands and Chile.
At
continental front, he also officiated the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations final
between Ghana and Cote D Ivoire.
On
27 April 2017, Gassama was selected as CAF’s sole Referee for the 2017 FIFA
Confederations Cup Final in Russia. He
was assisted by Claude Birumushahu of Burundi and Marwa Range from Kenya while
his Video Assistant was Malang Diedhiou of Senegal. He officiated Group A match
between Mexico and New Zealand.
Gassama
continued with his panel of Referees when FIFA nominated him further to
officiate some matches at the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Gassama won the CAF Referee
of the Year three times in a row in 2014, 2015, and 2016.
