By Sulayman Bah
Gambia First Division football club Hawks have poured cool water on riffed reports claiming they are in talks with a Senegalese top tier side over the transfer of their player Musa Yaffa.
Weekend papers were full of unsubstantiated claims linking former Bakau United midfield ace, now a Hawks footballer, to Ziguinchor-based Casa Sport, a side in Southern Senegal.
Some even said that all modalities had been agreed between Hawks and Casa Sport with the deal only being delayed by paper work red-tape.
Hawks’ club Secretary General this week moved swiftly to debunk the assertions as unfounded but admitted the playmaker is in Senegal but rather on a different mission.
‘He (Musa Yaffa) is in Zinguinchor at the moment. It’s got nothing to do with Casa Sport (Football Club). We have no communication with Casa Spot in anyway. He (Musa) is a Hawks player. The only team we’re dealing with in Senegal is Stade de Mbour but we have nothing to do with Casa Sport,’ Sadibou Kamaso tells Foroyaa Sport.
Yaffa joined Hawks this season. The Gambia U-19 starlet was recently mired in controversy in November last year when he reportedly left the country shores for a trial with an unnamed Nigerian club without then club Bakau United’s consent.
The issue had Bakau United fuming at thoughts of the midfielder’s decision to leave without trace.
Reached about the matter at the time, Bakau United’s president Seedy Kinteh said he’s unaware of Yaffa’s arranged trial in Nigeria and said they could take up the matter with the country’s football federation should it emerge that the player had signed without their involvement.
‘He is a Bakau United player. Even last year there was that problem. If there is any idea about that (signing in Nigeria) then we will write to the FA. We are not aware that Musa went on a trial. He left this country under what capacity? What we can tell you is, Musa is a Bakau United player,’ Seedy Kinteh told Foroyaa Sport November last year.
This is not the first time Musa is being caught up in a web of controversy. The ex-Gambia U-17 starlet in 2014 reportedly trained and registered with Hawks Football Club before an intervention by the GFF to nib the issue in the bud.