Coach Leaps to Under-fire Gambian Star’s Defence

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By Sulayman Bah

Hamburg Coach has again come to the defence of star player Bakery Jatta who’s on the receiving end of severe derides.

The Gunjur-born is the subject of intense grilling from the German press who months ago accused him of fraud and lying to authorities over his age and identity.

Inevitably becoming juicy bit of pack pages, the saga left the Gambian understandably irked and wary of his future as he battled smattering of boos at virtually every stadium he played during those torrid times.

Investigations were later conducted but the allegations were found to be too good to be true prompting withdrawal of the case against him.

Fresh from that snag, Jatta got caught up in another web of controversy after he got sent off consequently missing two games.

The arbiter of that German second tier fixture adjudged the Gambian to have launched a too footed challenge. As a result , the 21-year-old had to serve punishment in the form of missing two straight games for the Hamburg SV outfit amid criticisms.

And commenting over the treatment of his player, Hamburg’s coach Dieter Hecking, said: ‘Bakery Jatta has done no harm in terms of being punished exceptionally, and then, seeing that punishment was required if he could be shown to have something wrong with his identity, then I think that’s presumptuous on the part of Bild-Zeitung.’

The winger is now to sit out the matches against Dynamo Dresden tomorrow and next week Friday when they face Osnabruck.