Martin Gomez, the president of the Gambia Secondary Schools Sports Association yesterday called the Point to state that he was never part of a letter, purportedly sent by 16 sporting associations to the IOC that urged the international body not to send a fact- finding mission to look into the GNOC crises, as requested by Sheriff Gomez of Lawn Tennis.
The letter, dispatched to the press last Wednesday accused Mr Sheriff Jammeh’s Lawn tennis and two other associations of holding the nation at ransom, by instituting a court action over the GNOC affair. It was said to have been signed by 16 national associations.
However, Martin Gomez said “as the president of the Secondary Schools Sports Association has not been consulted and he is not and cannot be part of it as he was not even in town, I cannot even oppose a fact-finding mission by the IOC. That is not my nature.” Asked how his association was named in the letter, Gomez said, he learnt from his secretary that the letter was brought to him to append his signature on it.
When contacted for clarification, the Secretary-General of the Secondary Schools Sports Association, Alhagie Darboe, who agreed that he had signed the letter on behalf of the association, said “I used my discretion to sign it as my president was not around, I cannot deny that.”
This is the second letter to be received by the IOC on Gambian Olympic committee matters from different camps in less than two weeks. Mr Sheriff Gomez, who is a candidate in the now stalled elections, had written to the IOC to send a fact-finding mission to The Gambia as a way of resolving the dispute within the GNOC.
In an apparent opposition to that, this recent letter supposedly signed by 16 associations, is asking the IOC not to heed that call as they have not been consulted by Mr. Jammeh, and that they would continue to back the current GNOC leadership.
