Papa Gassama: One of Africa’s Best Picked To Handle Cameroon vs Egypt

The Confederation of African Football (CAF), has selected Papa Gassama Bakary as referee for the crunch fixture – pitting the indomitable Lions against Egypt, on February 3rd.

CAF’s complete team to refer the game;

Referee: Gassama Bakary Papa (Gambia)
Assistant Referee 1: Jerson Emiliano Dos Santos (Angola)
Assistant Referee 2: Arsenio Maringula (Mozambique)
Fourth Official: Joshua Bondo (Botswana)
Reserve AR : Soulaiman Almaldine (Comoros)
Video Assistant Referee: Haythem Guirat (Tunisia)
Assistant Video Assistant Referee 1 : Lahlou Benbraham (Algeria)
Assistant Video Assistant Referee 2 : Khalil Hassani (Tunisia)
Referee Assessor : Ali Mohamed Ahmed (Somalia)

Very few can match the wit of Gassama on the whistle, in the past 10 years on the African continent.

After three years on the international panel he got a quarter-final in the African Cup of Nations.

In March 2013, FIFA named Gassama as one of the fifty potential referees for the 2014 World Cup. And eventually, on January 2014, FIFA announced that he would be one of the 25 referees for the tournament.

He officiated the third group stage match in group B between the Netherlands and Chile on 23 June 2014. He officiated the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations Final match on 8 February 2015 between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

On 27 April 2017, Gassama was selected as CAF’s sole referee for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. His sole match at the competition was the Group A match between Mexico and New Zealand on 21 June 2017.

On 29 March 2018, FIFA announced that Gassama will officiate some matches at 2018 FIFA World Cup along with Jean-Claude Birumushahu and Marwa Range as assistant referees.

Used to these sort of fixtures; (Cameroon vs Egypt), Gassama has been entrusted such crunch ties, and has gone on to handle the games without fear or favour.

In 2019, the later handled the semis between North African side – Algeria, against West African giants, Nigeria, where Algeria won 2-1.

Now, in what has been a somewhat trademark, nonchalant attitude towards referees in the competition, Egypt has launched an official disapproval of Gassama’s presence as the referee for the game.

It is a carbon copy of what Carlos Queiroz and his team did (complaints) in the quarter finals where Referee Maguette Ndiaye handled their game against Morocco, which they won 2-1 on extra time.

Despite Egypt’s disapproval, CAF is set to maintain her decision of letting Gassama handle the game.