Canada’s United Soccer League club, Montreal Impact FC, have signed The Gambia and Bakau United’s top striker Pa Amadou Gai alias Daddy Gai on a two-year contract worth 2000 Canadian dollars (about fourty three thousand dalasis), Observer Sports has reliably gathered.

The signing of the most feared Gambian forward alongside a fellow trialist Belgian defender Zanzan, was made public on Wednesday, during the club’s annual pre-season banquet where they officially presented their roster for the 2009 season.

The contracts are pending the league's approval.
Daddy Gai, a 24-year-old goal scoring machine with pace and power played for the Gambia First Division club Bakau United since 1997 when the team gained promotion to Gambia’s top flight. He is currently the first division leading goal scorer with nine goals in eleven first round matches. Widely respected as the country’s best natural striker, Gai also had a memorable stint with The Gambia youth teams (U-17, U-20, U-23) where he was a public demand. Impact technical director Nick De Santis said of the signing: “Pa Amadou Gai impressed us with his technical skills and physical aptitudes”,  “He is a future prospect, but in the meantime, he will bring depth to the attack.”

Daddy Gai’s new club, Montreal Impact, are a professional soccer team, founded in 1993.  They are a member of the United Soccer League (USL) First Division, the second tier of the American and Canadian Soccer Pyramids. The team are set to kick off their regular season on Saturday, April 18, with an away tie against the Battery in Charleston.

Low signing fee
Daddy Gai’s signing fee looks too low for his calibre, but his former club president, Seedy Kinteh, explained why the Bakau club agreed to take less than D50,000 for a striker whose value is above a million. “We accepted the offer of 2000 Canadian dollars for Daddy because we were only looking at his interest and not the club’s interest. We could have bargained for a better price but then we just wanted let him to go,” Kinteh said.