The name Saller has been a household name in the country, simply because all the national teams in The Gambia wear it.

Since the 2005 CAF U-17 Championship in Banjul, where The Gambia side were kitted in the adidas outfits, Saller Sports has been the official kit providers (not sponsors) to the Gambia national teams.

The Gambia U-17 team used the Saller kits in the FIFA U-20 World Cup held Peru in 2005, before other national teams follow suit in their respective competitions.

Because our national teams wear Saller kits, every Gambian is pleased to wear a cloth bearing Saller trademark.

While the general public may be pleased with the quality of the Saller materials, the quantity provided to our national teams unarguably falls far from expected.

During the CAF U-20 Championship in Congo, the Gambian side was the most unfortunate sides as far as quality and quantity kits were concerned. It was a great surprise to many that the Gambian team travelled to Congo with only two sets of jerseys (one set of white jersey and one set red jersey).

Apart from spending DUS$500 to launder the jerseys after every match, The Gambia team could have also been forced to make conditional substitutions in every match they played in Congo. Because in the case of any on-pitch incident that can spill blood over a player’s shirt, that player will have no choice but to leave the pitch if there is no replacement for the blood-tainted jersey. With this rule in place, The Gambia played the second-most prestigious championship with no back-up jerseys.

The saddest thing, however, is that The Gambia has never been rewarded for wearing the Saller kits, instead, the national football governing body sometimes pay for the transport cost of the materials from Germany.

Countries like Senegal, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea and Angola receive millions of dollars annually for wearing a particular trademark. The Nigeria Football Association is receiving Euro15,000 (Fifteen thousand euro) annually from the Adidas Company for wearing Adidas kits and this was revealed by the Nigerian officials during the Congo championship in Brazzaville in front of some GFA officials.

In addition to their lucrative reward, each category of the national team is given enough kits for any championship they may enter for and this was also evident in the Congo finals when each of the Nigerian players had seven sets of home-and-away jerseys for the two-week tournament.

I am not saying Saller Sports should also give millions to the Gambia Football Association for their usage of the Saller kits. Instead, they should provide the national teams with enough materials since they are not rewarding the football association for promoting the seemingly unknown trademark at the international arenas.

As Gambia prepares for another record-breaking final in Canada 2007, I hope the official kit providers, Saller Sports, will learn from the Congo dilemma and provide the gallant Darling Scorpions with quantity and quality materials.