The team was on Tuesday presented a cheque for D171 million dalasis by the government at the State House in Banjul.
Speaking to the journalists at the Independence Stadium in Bakau, Bakary Y. Badjie, the minister of Youth and Sports, confirmed that the players failed to show up to their farewell training session after demanding a match bonus of over D38 million from the government.
"The communication we got is that the players said they were expecting a qualification bonus that was not paid to them. It is not what people are saying about match bonuses and as far as I know, they are not owed match bonuses. The training camp they went to in Saudi Arabia, each was given €5, 000,” Sports Minister revealed."
It has been reported that the players were not interested in the match bonus for qualifying to the AFCON. They preferred to be given a diplomatic passport each, which the minister said was given to them all.
"As stakeholders, our responsibility has been fulfilled and we coordinated this training session together with the technical staff of the team. The players are the ones that didn’t come. We don’t talk to the players directly. There is a linkage between us and the players," he said.
Minister Badjie confirmed that there was a signal earlier on Tuesday, from the players that if they were not given the money they would not come to the training ground which they ended up doing.
According to him, there was an ongoing negotiation in which they all agreed that the players would have their farewell and final training session before fans but they decided not to come at the end.
"In football, such things happen which is why we decided to summon an emergency NCC meeting to get a full update from GFF. We called the president (Adama Barrow) in Mauritania and he said the Ministry of Finance should pay the amount (over D38 million) that the players are demanding."
