The Gambia
National volleyball teams (male and female) are gearing up for a busy year in
international competition.
The first international outing for Gambia Volleyball Association (GVBA) will be the U-21 Zone II tournament which will be held in Dakar, Senegal, for ten days.
The team is expected to travel on Wednesday 13 August 2014 with a thirty-six man delegation.
The technical committee has identified four coaches to oversee the Under 21 male and female.
Alagie Babu Joof and Lamin Sanneh are responsible for the females, while Ebrima Nyassi and Pa Bubacarr Barrow will guide the male team.
Speaking ahead of the championship, the auditor of the association, Alagie Ceesay (Nature), shed light on the importance of the competition.
“We are ready to expose our teams in international championships,” he said, adding: “This is part of plans to send our national teams whenever we are invited, and we are hopeful they we will come out with an outstanding result.”
“The more we play international games the more we will trade our players to bigger leagues and that will be an additional benefit to the country,” Nature said.
The auditor was quick to call for more financial support mainly from the central government and other institutions to support the team to successfully take part in this event.
This tournament will be held as a warm-up match before the African women championships to be held in Algeria from 5 to 15 September 2014 for the category of U-18 and U-23 females and the winner will represent Africa in the qualifiers of the 2015 World Cup championship.
In another development the Gambia Volleyball Association is organizing a three-day training programme on capacity building to hone the skills of local referees and coaches on the rules and regulation of beach volleyball.
This training programme will help the limited local coaches and referees to know more about the game as FIVB is encouraging their affiliated federations to promote beach volleyball in their respective countries and today beach volleyball is a priority on FIVB developments, the secretary general of the association, Sainey Jarju, said.
International referee Bai Dodou Jallow will be conducting the training programme to which 20 participants are invited to take part.
Among the participants are 12 referees and 8 coaches from clubs affiliated with Gambia Volleyball Association.The course will start on Friday 8 to 10 August 2014 at the Olympafrica Centre Serrekunda East from 9 a.m to 2 p.m daily.
GVBA is also staging a Nawetan beach volleyball tournament for the first time in The Gambia which will be played at the SunSwing Hotel beach side just near Pocoloco Night Club.
The tournament, which will be sponsored by Gamcel, will kick-start on Sunday 17 August 2014 and run for three weeks.
Eight teams, namely Gamtel/Gamcel, Brikama, Serrekunda East, Jeshwang, GAF, Interior, GFRS and the Gambia Veterans volleyball club, will take part in the competition.
The executive is also calling on stakeholders and companies to come forward and support volleyball, which they believe will go a long way in helping out this rather dormant sport.
