The 2007 bronze medallists at the CAF African Youth Championship, The Gambia U-20’s, will have their first taste of the qualifiers of the 16thedition of the African Youth tournament in June 2008. The youth tournament is slated to take place in 2009 in Rwanda.

According to the fixtures released from the umbrella body in charge of African football, CAF, the first leg of the preliminary round will commence on the weekend of the 18thof April 2008 and will feature 24 teams including Senegal, who will take on Sierra Leone in Freetown. The second leg will be played two weeks later when Senegal will host the Leone Stars in Dakar.

The Gambia, Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Angola, Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Benin, Morocco and Tunisia are the countries thathave been byed toplayed in the first round of the qualifiers which willtake place inJune and July2008.

The Gambia U-20’s will have to wait for the winner between Mauritania and Algeria in the preliminaries. As either team, that emerges winner in both legs, will travel to Banjul to play in the weekend of the 27thof June 2008 for the first leg.

The Gambia U-20’s will then play the return leg on the 11th, 12thor 13thof August 2008.

The Gambia U-20’s had a dashing performance in 2007 during the African and World Youth championship held in Congo and Canada respectively. The team was one of four African teams that have broken a record from Africa, after sailing through to the second stage of the World Youth Championship despite not making it further.