The Annual Kashif and Shanghai Football Tournament enters its eighteenth and, arguably, its most difficult year. This year’s tournament almost didn’t happen and the fact that it will is due to the intervention of the the highest authority in the land – the country’s Executive President.
Several weeks ago, the promoters, Kashif Mohammed and Aubrey “Shanghai” Major, two Lindeners whose names have now become part of local fotball folklore, had begun to signal that the “business end” of the event was pointing to a financial loss this year. Media reports had suggested that the 16 per cent Value Added Tax implemented in January this year might force the organizers to cancel this year’s event.
Three weeks ago President Bharrat Jagdeo intervened, arrangements to address the VAT issue were settled and the organizers announced that the tournament would proceed after all.
The President’s decision to make it possible for the tournament to clear the VAT hurdle came as a surprise to some observers. The Guyana Revenue Authority has gone to great lengths to ensure that sports and entertainment promoters pay their share of the tax. For his part, President Jagdeo might argue that his gesture was consistent with what appears to be a commitment on the part of his government to ensure that the tournament survives.
It is an argument that perhaps takes account of the fact that the Kashif and Shanghai Tournament has sustained a commendable momentum for seventeen years in a sport that has been replete with problems and which, despite recent modest achievements at the regional level, has made no real mark in the international arena.
While the World Cup achievements of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago might have raised hopes that Guyana too may be on the way there, indiscipline, less than competent administration and insufficient attention to the promotion of the game beyond what is sometimes a scrappy club level have stifled its growth and development.
The Kashif and Shanghi Organization has argued that its annual tournament has provided a springboard for local players to secure semi-professional contracts with clubs in Trinidad and Tobago where the sport is more advanced. Critics of the Tournament have said, however, that the event is really no different from any other business-oriented sports or entertainment event and that the local game has not really benefited from the support that the tournament has received over the years. It is, critics of the Kashif and Shanghai Organization say, purely a question of money.
The organizers of the tournament have, over the years, succeeded in recruiting some of the country’s largest business houses to its side. Banks DIH Ltd, for example, has been one of the tournament’s principal sponsors from its inception. Other high-profile companies including the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company, (GT&T) have provided sponsorship for the event. This year, the Chinese bauxite company, BOSAI is also likely ‘chip in.’
For its part, the government, apart from providing prize monies for winning teams has also provided various forms of logistical support for the event.
Two years ago the Kashif and Shanghai Tournament pulled of a major ‘coup’ when it succeeded in attracting the attention of the single biggest name in regional football, Austin “Jack” Warner, President of CONCACAF and a Vice President of the world football body FIFA. Warner has not only flown to Guyana specifically to attend the finals of the Tournament in Linden but has also pledged to provide financial support for the event in the sum of one million Guyana dollars annually. The tournament has also enhanced its international stature by attracting the participation of teams from the Caribbean and the United States.
‘Giving back’ to the game, however, is an issue that has haunted an event that has otherwise come to be regarded as unquestionably the best example of organized football in Guyana. Those who argue that public financing for what is in fact a privately-run sports event ought to be reciprocated more generously, have sometimes made the point that there is no shortage of worthy causes, particularly in Linden, the original home of the tournament, to which the promoters of the tournament can contribute.
Through their exploits, Kashif and Shanghai have built up a considerable popularity base in Linden and two years ago they joined forces with a US-based organization, Linden Fund, USA, to host the first ever Linden Town Week. Once again, while the two promoters received accolades for their organizational skills, wagging tongues were critical of what was felt to be the pronounced commercial outlook of the event and what many argued was a disinclination to ‘give back.’ This year, in the wake of differences between the organization and mining town’s Interim Management Committee, the franchise for the hosting of the Town Week was awarded to another promoter.
The two Lindeners, however, have attracted as much praise as they have, criticism. Some years ago, during the finals of the event at the Mckenzie Sports Club Ground, Stan Smith, the then Mayor of Linden hinted that perhaps the organization might be considered for a national award, a suggestion that was not embraced by sports administrators. The names of the two directors of the organization have also, from time to time, been linked to influential positions in the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) the local FIFA representative whose President, Colin Klass, has had to endure years of public criticism for what is widely felt to be the GFF’s failure to take local football ‘places’ despite a huge annual subvention from FIFA.
It appears, however, that the two promoters are content to operate at the entertainment end of football and sometimes to join with other entertainment promoters in staging events like last year’s Beris Hammond concert at the GCC Ground, Bourda and last month’s ‘sellout’ “music festival” at the National Stadium.
Never seeming to tire of seeking out opportunities to stage big local events, the two promoters are reportedly already contemplating next year’s Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) as another potential opportunity. Indeed, it appears that they may already be preparing to drop a proposal for the staging of a huge regional concert to coincide with CARIFESTA in the lap of Culure Minister Dr. Frank Antohny.
Greg Charles (Kashif Mohammed) generally regarded as the organization’s ‘engine room’ is an animated and combative character. He rejects the accusation that the Kashif and Shanghai Organization is about “money only.” While he concedes that some financial return is expected from the tournament he says that the tournament has done much to change the face of football in Guyana. He believes that apart from the opportunities which the tournament has provided for local clubs to participate in a well-organized event, it has also allowed smaller clubs that are not part of the traditional ‘power centres’ of local football to grace the bigger stage.
Mohammed also says that the organization has been directly responsible for placing local players in clubs in Trinidad and Tobago and for generating a higher level of regional interest in the local game. Additionally, he points to gifts presented to schools in the Linden orea by the organization.
Mohammed, however, tends not to dwell on the criticisms of the organization. Invariably, he appears to be always too busy undertaking some exercise of earth-shattering importance. He has a natural flair for “putting things together” and has combined what he says is his love for football with his appreciable skills as an entertainment promoter to increase the game’s national fan base. His decision, some years ago, to take the tournament to Blairmont – not a traditional location for football – has paid off with the creation of a large fan base on both sides of the Berbice river. Two years ago he was invited to St, Lucia by a promotion group there to help plan an intra-regional club tournament.
Perha
ps the biggest single achievement of the Kashif and Shanghai Football Tournament has been its success in placing itself firmly on the national Christmas entertainment calendar. The Tournament attracts as many as 20,000 football fans to its various preliminary games, and the New Year’s Day finals at Linden is widely regarded as a significant boost for the town’s economy and the single biggest entertainment event on the mining town’s calendar.
Perhaps it was President Jagdeo political instincts that persuaded him to ‘pick up the VAT tab’ for this year’s Kashif and Shanghai tournament.
