The fixtures for the qualifying round of the 2009 African U-17 championship scheduled to take place in Algeria have been released by the Confederation of African Football.

According to the fixture list, the first leg of the Preliminary rounds, including sixteen teams, will kick start on the weekend of the 11th of April 2008. In which five teams are expected to proceed to the first round of the Qualifiers.

The Gambia, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, South Africa and others are exempted from the preliminaries and have a bye to play in the first round.  The first round commences in the last weekend of August and two weeks later the return legs will follow.

In the first Round, The Gambia is expected to either meet Liberia or Sierra Leone away, and will play as hosts in September.

They will also play another game in the second round in November and will have to win both legs in order to sail through to the 8th African U-17 Championship Algeria 2009.

It will be recalled that The Gambia were African champions of the 6th edition of the U-17 tournament hosted in Banjul but failed to defend the title in the following edition. They failed in the qualifiers. They failed to appear for the third time in Togo 2007.

Meanwhile, as part of preparation, The Gambia Football Association has made a nationwide selection of young talented players who are currently being trained for the qualifiers.