President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Colin Klass says that the National Sports Commission (NSC) headed by Director of Sport Neil Kumar should acknowledge publicly that his federation had nothing whatsoever to do with the Inter-Guiana Games (IGG) women’s football team and was therefore not responsible for its poor performance.
The GFF boss was responding to statements made by the Director of Sport in several sections of the media, including Stabroek Sport, that the NSC had informed the GFF some time last year about the staging of the IGG women’s football tournament and the need for assistance in providing a team. This was done in the light of the fact, he said, that 20% of the GFF’s US$250,000 annual funding from the world governing body FIFA should be spent on the development of women’s football.
Klass who has been at the helm of the sport for the past 20 years told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview yesterday, “The GFF can’t independently fund everything in relation to football for a programme that is not even CFU, CONCACAF or even FIFA-based, [and which] literally has no relation to the directive being given to the GFF as [far as] football and football development is concerned.”
This, he said, was in contrast to the active role the GFF had played in the past in relation to the IGG football team, when they had even funded their own training for the team.
He referred to the 2008 team which had been headed by then national coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover and noted that the same players had gone on to represent Guyana at the CONCACAF Under-20 World Cup qualifiers in Grenada.
“We were ready to work and were told a number of things from the department of sport as regards the team, and literally we were just sidelined, and if you are sidelined I don’t think you can force yourself into the situation, and so the GFF took it very gracefully and stepped aside,” Klass said.
He maintained that the GFF had nothing to do with the IGG football team, although they were willing and ready to assist in any way possible once the NSC treated them as they should have been treated. According to Klass, when the two bodies met to negotiate, the GFF offered to lend technical support to the NSC for the football competition since the GFF was tight on finances after a hectic 2008 football season, but they did not receive a favourable response.
“You know what is amusing to me is that had Guyana succeeded in the IGG that would have been used against the GFF, they would have then been speaking about how bad this GFF is and how they can’t do anything, but unfortunately fate doesn’t operate like that,” the GFF boss declared.
He added: “You could not have picked up a set of girls who have never played at any competitive level and put them against the Suriname team that is well oiled and drilled and a French Guiana team… what you are doing is tantamount to a suicidal attempt.”
However it was said that if the GFF were involved in any way, the players for the IGG female team would have automatically been from Bartica or Lethem and also Region 10, since those areas are well known for producing top class women football players.
The miserable showing by the female team, according to Klass, should not be used as a yardstick to measure the level of women’s football in Guyana, and the GFF has already put systems in place to work with the young players from Berbice.
Klass said that the NSC should not be putting the blame on the GFF for failing to produce a proper female team, but should stand up to their responsibility and accept their shortcomings.
“Leave the GFF out of it. If the GFF was involved it may have been a different process and we will not accept any such blame for any failing of any team that the GFF had nothing to do with,” Klass stated.