Brief Report on the 2011 Achievements of (GVBA)

Musa Casa Taal

By Mandu Sanneh

Even though Volley Ball is not popular like the game of football in the country, The Gambia Volleyball Association has tremendously done well to achieve a lot in the 2011.

 Speaking to The Daily News Sports Casa Taal, president of GVBA Casa said the association was having a review of their activities and programmes.

“Last year was an attainment year for the association, we organised coach’s perfection training which was well thought-out in collaboration with the Development Center in Senegal to enhance the capacity of our local coaches in the country,” said  Taal.

He said the training help the local coaches a lot, as many of them are now embarking on grassroots development in the greater Banjul area and in some schools.

Similarly, according to the president of the GVBA his association also organised a club championship league and knockout in October, with 6 male, 4 female teams, the finals were hosted in Banjul in February 2011, were both males and females contested remarkably.

He revealed that one of the national referees attended the Federation International De Volley Ball (FIVB) candidate course in Nigeria and got to be among the nominated referees of the (FIVB) which he said is an enormous achievement for the Volleyball in the country.

“It’s great to report that for the first time Volley ball to reach at the top level competition in the Beach Volleyball category. We made it to the first and second pools, qualifies up to the 3rd pool, where Gambia was eliminated in the quarter finals,” he said.

He continued to say that The Gambia happened to represent our Zone in the all African games in Maputo, Mozambique due to their qualification to the African Continental Cup and the London Olympic 2012 qualifiers.

“A training seminar was also organised to capacitise our national referees through the development strategy planning of CAVB which qualifies them automatically as candidate referees for (FIVB) till 2014,” Casa mused.

In addition he said all these attainments in the year 2011 by the GVBA were supported by the National Sports Council (NSC) and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) for their immense contribution towards sports development in the country.

In every success, there are shortfalls and Casa, the president revealed that the GVBA also encountered some set-backs during the past year. He spotted infrastructure, An Office space for smooth and perfect Administration, facilitate of the free movement of our technical department to reach provinces and Funding for the development of volleyball as some hitches to their association.