Tuesday, February 25, 2020 - 13:04 Mark Viales

The GFA has seen numerous reajustments to its executive but seldom have enough culpable heads rolled for the good of the game in Gibraltar. As it stands the
GFA’s latest reshuffle of its pack merely resembles a chessboard that lacks its main pieces. To quote Jose Mourinho, albeit in a different context, ‘the game becomes more complicated without a Queen, King or Bishop to protect the pawns’ and an inexperienced player runs the risk of being whitewashed.

The GFA has none of these essential pieces that could propel it to the next level. If Team 54 wants to fly high, it must cut off its loose ends and use the limitless pool of resources at its fingertips with the help of the professionals tasked with developing the game.

Much larger and stronger soccer nations have used UEFA and FIFA assets to take a more hands-on approach in developing football, but the GFA tribe seems to want to do it all on their own. It remains to be seen whether shifting the pawns will make any difference to Gibraltar’s football development. If cronyism and nepotism continues to infiltrate the national association, we may remain stagnant or regress as other small nations use the resources provided by the international governing bodies and we do not.

25-02-2020 PANORAMAdailyGIBRALTAR