By Rawle Toney
Following Guyana’s recent bid to host the Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Seniors Championship, the Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) has until March 9 to send a letter of commitment to the CBC. According to information reaching Stabroek Sport, the letter was sent to the federation by CBC president Usie Richards who acknowledged that they had received a letter of interest from the GABF with regards to hosting the championships.
In that light the CBC is requesting that the GABF send a letter of commitment signed by the federation and a representative of the government or the National Olympic Committee by March 9 expressing its commitment to fund and host the championships.
The letter stated also that the commitment letter was necessary in order to assure the implementation of the competition and they are anxiously awaiting the response.
When contacted yesterday, CBC president Richards confirmed contacting the federation but declined to go into details. He also stated that Guyana was not the only country to have sent in a bid but refused to name the other countries.
Contacted by Stabroek Sport, president of the GABF retired Col. Godwin McPherson said that since sending in the bid several efforts were made to contact the CBC through its president and vice-president (technical) Glyne Clarke but he was only able to speak to them through their voicemail.
However, up to the time of this report, McPherson said that he was unaware of this development as it related to the letter of commitment.
This request should not be much of a task for the GABF to fulfill since it was stated by Director of Sport Neil Kumar in several sections of the media that the government, through the National Sports Commission, was fully prepared to help Guyana meet whatever were the requirements to host the championships.