Like any good doctor, Colin Klass, president of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) on Friday attempted to give an ailing football nation a surgery that would make the patient well enough to play in the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
The patient waited patiently for the doctor and his team, some of whom had travelled from the United States for this medical miracle.
It was not important that the major team members turned up late. What was important was that they were there.
They discussed at length how the operation was to be performed and every one on the medical team seemed quite convinced that the operation would be successful.
The medical team even ensured that the operating room was well-equipped with all the necessities and the “free meal” which was prescribed.
Ailing patients hardly ever ask doctors about procedures, their only thoughts are to get well.
That is probably how it happens in another world.
In the real world it hardly ever happens that way and more especially at press conferences.
A journalist’s first obligation is to the truth and its first loyalty is to the citizens of a country. As such, journalists are supposed to ask the hard questions and they expect answers, honest, truthful answers.
The Guyana World Cup Committee apparently believed that they had all the answers in a little brochure placed on the tables and in the length of time it took to unfurl their plans.
According to the brochure, the committee needs US$3.5 million to be realized through fund raising activities and the support of all Guyanese here at home and in the Diaspora if the team is to reach the World Cup finals in South Africa.
The brochure also documented promoting a positive image of the GFF and football in Guyana in the period 2008 to 2010.
But what some members of the committee seemed unaware of was that football has a long history of not getting things right.
“Success in this endeavour will be achieved through concerted approaches to fundraising, selection, training and development of the team and solicitation of the support of all Guyanese and well wishers,” appeared as the Vision Statement in the brochure.
Even provided in the document was information on a website that has been up and running for some time with people in the United States having knowledge of this site which up to Friday was yet unknown to the Guyanese public.
The logo and Mission Statement were displayed boldly on the cover and all seemed well for the organizers to seek the media’s support in sensitizing the public on plans for Guyana’s World Cup campaign.
But in all this, one very important deliverable was left out: the issue of football facilities for the team to train and to play matches.
Klass had no convincing answer to this question and many others that have plagued football in the past.
Instead of dealing with the problems besetting the GFF and to seek ways to resolve these issues, Klass decided to take a confrontational approach to the questions posed by the media.
Certainly, if Klass wants the media to send his message out that the GFF’s World Cup committee needs support from the Guyanese public, then he also needs to answer the questions that the media think the public is entitled to know. After all, they will be putting their hard earned money in support of the GFF’s cause.
In every plan or programme there will be some level of opposition, but in this case the only opposition came from Klass, who was reluctant to give the media the answers they requested.
The situation of grounds for the national team to train on is at a crisis level and the public wants to know why there is not a viable alternative to having the national team thrown out from ground to ground.
What the public needs via the media are answers not the many excuses that Klass was willing to offer including the absurd idea of taking the team to Trinidad and Tobago to train.
At whose expense,the same Guyanese people whom they are asking for support?
Will Guyanese endorse such a move which will entail most of their money being spent in the twin-island republic to feed, house and pay the team with the Trinidad and Tobago economy benefiting from such an exercise?
The World Cup Committee’s work has now come into focus and this nation demands that they meet with all stakeholders to seriously address the ground crisis – Incidentally, President Bharrat Jagdeo is the patron of the WCC.
Friday’s Press Conference was indeed a public relations nightmare and the GFF-WCC will now have to get into crisis management mode.
