The Georgetown Football Association (GFA) organized 2008 Milo Under-21 round-robin football knockout competition was officially launched yesterday in the boardroom of M. Beepat & Sons Limited with the handing over of the sponsorship cheque.
The sponsors who have the marketing rights for the Milo brand, a product of the Nestle Company, have already been associated with supporting the GFA when they sponsored the 2007 under-20 round-robin knockout tournament through their Supligen brand.
Nestle’s Marketing Rep-resentative Ramdat Rampersaud stated in his brief remarks that Beepat have kept their word to the GFA and are proud to sponsor this year’s tournament as shown by renewing this year’s partnership.
He further said that he would like to see the continuation of this tournament in the future.
“A gesture was made to Nestle to set aside a budget to allow the continuation of this tournament for the next five years,” Rampersaud added.
In closing he wished the GFA the best for the future and noted that he would like to see players from this tournament progress to represent Guyana in the future. “I am happy that we have been able to partner with Nestle to get this the U-21 tournament underway,” GFA President Troy Mendonca said in his opening remarks.
”Junior tournaments of such are used as a stepping stone for the nurturing of youths into a premier league team or a First Division team. It bridges the gap between junior and the senior team,” Mendonca added.
And GFA Public Relations Officer Sampson Gilbert expressed gratitude to the main sponsor (Beepat & Sons) for their partnership with the GFA to support the 2008 U-21 tournament.
“We are thankful for the sponsorship we have received from Beepat and other miscellaneous business entities that have partnered with us (GFA) on this venture.”
Meanwhile, the tournament is set to commence on November 22 with matches at the Tucville playfied and Camptown ground. Matches will be contested every Saturday from the first kickoff date with double headers being simultaneously contested on both grounds at 2:00pm and 4:00pm. A total of 12 teams are set to compete in the 38-match tournament and have been placed in two groups for the preliminary rounds. Group A consists of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), Alpha United, Thomas United, Georgetown Football Club (GFC), Pele and Riddim Squad while Group B has Santos, Fruta Conquerors, Beacons, Flamingo, BK Int’l Western Tigers and Sunburst Camptown.
They will be contesting for the tournament’s top honours which include $60,000 for the winner, $30,000 for the runner-up and $20,000 and $10,000 for third and fourth positions respectively. Individual prizes for the Best Goalkeeper, Highest Goal Scorer, Most Disciplined Team and Most Valuable Player are also up for grabs.
Players must be born on or after January 1, 1987 to be eligible to play and the other rules of the tournament do not differ from those of FIFA, CONCACAF and GFF.
