The Gambia government has paid a whopping 38 million dalasis to the senior national football team following a row over unpaid match bonuses which led to the players refusing to train at the Independence Stadium on Tuesday.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports said in a statement that President Adama Barrow stepped in to give directive to the Minister of Finance to pay the bonuses to the players. 

“The Ministry through the NCC has earlier today paid the D38 million cheque to the team manager for distribution among the players, coach and technical staff,” the ministry said.

However, the ministry added:”qualification bonus was not arranged by the Ministry, neither included by GFF in the AFCON budget submitted due to the team’s captain request that they would prefer Diplomatic passport over monetary compensation for qualifying- a request that was granted by H.E President Barrow.”

“It was therefore surprising, that after government agreeing to increase by 100% the AFCON camping allowance to €5000.00 per player and €2500.00 for technical staff and between €5000.00 to €10,000.00 for every match winning bonus, the team insisted on an economically unsustainable demands that the Ministry wasn’t privy to.”

The ministry urged the players “to focus on the matches ahead and display respectful performance as known of them.”

Reporting by Adama Makasuba