Dear Editor,

Based on the caption in your last issue dated the 3rd of April 2008.Which reads “Is our Sports moving forward?

As Karate practitioner, I am only limiting my experience and comments on the status of Karate in The Gambia. I started Karate in 1998 when I was attending the Gambia High School. By then, Karate was only five years old in The Gambia. As we were among the first High Schools to get a Karate club.

By then Karate was experiencing a lot of progress and was spreading in schools like a wildfire and it had even reached up to the corner of The Gambia (Basse).

Things turned up with some selfish and unscrupulous so-called Karate masters took over the GKF (Gambia Karate Federation) in 19th October 2002.

Since that time, Karate has been stagnant and experienced a lot of malfunctions like poor governance, lack of technical personnel, and some executive members quitted their executive duties. This brought about the situation where one individual has been running the whole affairs of the GKF for the last five.

Karate was experiencing this trauma for a five-year period. The most shameful thing about this matter is that the Karate Executive has been overdue for congress for the last five months and they had to be forced by some responsible clubs and with the interference of the National council, to hold a congress on the 19th October 2008 by force whether they like it or not. My fear is they do not know how to write their AGM reports that what brought about all this delay to call for congress. Reports like the Presidential Report, Secretarial and financial reports.

It was the same shameless Executive that took a Karate combatant to the All-African Games with a Coach; no materials were bought for the combatant. He had to turn to the Senegalese Karate team to borrow some shin guards worth less than D3000.00. This was among the biggest moments of shame The Gambia had ever had in sports at international level.

The real point is who is to be blame on this matter. Is it the GKF or the National Sports Council? You tell me.

The selfish president insisted on going and the coach of the combatant had to withdraw. Is this the type of president we need in our youth associations?

There are lots of associations that do not have specific membership; this means that the executive will be there for ages without being changed. These are the types of things the National Sports Council need to look into. Some associations are overdue for congress for over years and nobody talks about it.

I conclusion Mrs. Editor, if we really want our sports to move forward, we have to make some reforms and logistics to see that all callous people are removed from the track of sports development. Therefore, we shall enjoy a Gambia with good sports progress.