Minister responsible for Sport Dr. Frank Anthony has promised that a comprehensive football programme is soon to be launched in the schools.
Dr. Anthony made the disclosure while declaring open the Guyana Football federation 2007-2008 season at the Mackenzie Sports Club ground on Sunday evening.
Imploring the footballers to embrace the best practices in their development, Anthony agreed with the notion that improved health was one of the benefits of playing football and indicated that his ministry would engage other stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, to ensure that a comprehensive football de-velopment programme was launched in the school system.
President of the GFF Colin Klass spoke of the strides local football has made and assured that football in Guyana has much further to go but said this was only possible if the local footballers embraced discipline as their partner.
Klass praised the sub-associations and affiliates of the GFF who he noted “had worked really hard in the past year to promote football within their communities.”
Klass, however, warned that the road forward was going to be much tougher with Guyana’s involvement at the FIFA World Cup South Africa at hand and urged the current crop of players to work much harder and focus on learning and perfecting their skills both on and off the field.
He expressed appreciation for the presence of the Dr. who agreed to officially declare the season open and pointed out that the GFF now enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Ministry of Sport and the Minister himself who he said, seemed keen to see football develop beyond its current level.
Meanwhile in results at the opening a Georgetown-Mocha combined ladies team, emerged winners of a knock-out tournament involving GFF teams from Bartica, Upper Demerara and a GDF-East Demerara combined squad.
In the national Under-15 final, East Demerara went under to Georgetown by a 0-5 margin with Pernell Schultz of Georgetown, being voted the tournament’s MVP.
Alex Murray was adjudged the best goalkeeper and King Archer of Berbice, who scored six goals, won the award for the most goals scored in the competition.
The feature match of the evening saw hosts Upper Demerara seniors going under 1-2 to a Georgetown combination.