SHEFFIELD (Julio Chitunda's African Message) - I would not call him the 'saviour' but Babacar Ndiaye is the man that Senegal's basketball community have trusted to reinvent the basketball programmes in the country.

Ndiaye was elected the new President of Senegal's Basketball Federation (FSBB), receiving 76 of the 93 votes (80 percent) in Saturday's elections, while Mathieu Faye, a former player, received 16 votes.

The newly-elected president will replace a National Standard Committee (NSC) which ran basketball in the country for the last three years.

Ndiaye's election has to be a new beginning for Senegal Basketball.

It has to be the rebirth of Senegal basketball, otherwise we will be facing the same accusations of mismanagement that have undermined their game in the past few years.

This is a country often dubbed as one of the most talented on the African continent although they repeatedly fail to return to their glory days.

Despite an impressive campaign at 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup, Senegal continue to struggle in the continental scene, and needed to receive a wild card invitation - for the second time since 2009 - to take part in this year’s AfroBasket in Nabeul and Tunis, Tunisia (19-30 August).

I often say that a team of Senegal's caliber should never rely on a wild card invitation to compete among the best national teams in the continent. It only suggests that something is not quite right.

Senegal have an abundance of talented players competing in some of top leagues in the world, and Ndiaye will have to maximise their talented reputation.

While the men's team struggles to repeat their last title continental title - accomplished on home soil in 1997 - their women's counterpart can't do any better.

The 11-time African champions last won a continental trophy in 2009 in Madagascar, but have plummeted in the FIBA World Ranking Women, and are no longer the best team in Africa.

Ndiaye will need to resolve the future of Sengal's youth teams as well as the progress of local clubs.

It has been almost three years since Senegal’s youth national teams withdrew from the continental championships and no one knows when their clubs will return to Africa Clubs competitions.

The points that I mentioned above in this column will surely define Ndiaye's tenure ahead of FSBB.

Listening to Ndiaye's speech after his election victory as well as the messages of support that he has received, it looks like the Senegalese found the exit to the many troubles affecting the game of basketball in the country.

However he mentioned one important thing about the challenges that lay ahead for the Federation. Ndiaye knows he is going to need to unify the basketball community in the country in order to take the game of basketball to the next level.

"Nothing can be done if we are divided," he noted in his speech.

So my first task will be to reunite the family of basketball. If we don’t work together, we can’t do anything great. - Ndiaye

"The new members of the new FSBB have an obligation to carry out this mission to develop the game of basketball throughout the country, to ensure that basketball regains its former glory," he explained.

In other words, Ndiaye is saying that the new FSBB needs to make basketball more popular in rural areas and get Senegal back on the basketball map.

Serigne Mboup, who chaired the NSC, made sure to welcome Ndiaye, saying: "When we arrived we had a huge task to unify the family of Senegalese basketball. When we look at this room we can say that the future of Senegalese basketball is still bright."

I truly feel that there will be an improvement with Ndiaye's election.

Julio Chitunda

FIBA

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