— but sees light at the end of the tunnel
By Donald Duff in Nassau, Bahamas
Austin Jack Warner, president of CONCACAF and vice president of FIFA yesterday said he was disappointed that Guyana’s goal project has not yet gotten off the ground but added that he was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I must be disappointed… Guyana was one of the first countries where we had initiated this programme,” Warner told Stabroek Sport yesterday at a press conference following the CONCACAF Congress at the Atlantis Hotel here.
In 1999, Guyana, Belize, the Bahamas, Nicaragua and St Lucia were listed as countries to benefit from FIFA’s new initiative, the ‘Goal Project’.
Two years later FIFA president Joseph Sepp Blatter visited Guyana supposedly for the historic turning of the sod for what was thought to be this country’s first football stadium on land under the control of the University of Guyana.
But in one of the most embarrassing moments in this country’s football history the sod was never turned and Blatter subsequently told the media in Guyana that FIFA does not build stadia. The building of stadia, he had declared, was the responsibility of governments.
This was not what then minister responsible for sport Gail Teixeira claimed she had been told by Warner. Teixeira had claimed at the time that she and the National Sports Commission had been told by Warner that US$20 million would be made available for the erection of a football stadium here once land was available for such a venture.
What Blatter subsequently revealed to the Guyanese media during his inaugural visit here in 2001 was that FIFA would contribute some US$400,000 once the Guyana Football Federation would be able to acquire the necessary land.
Since then the GFF had struggled to acquire land from the government and it took the intervention of Moroccan Alami Binani, now a naturalised Guyanese, to make available to the GFF land at Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo.
Meanwhile, some countries have benefited from the goal project among them St Kitts/Nevis. But a few have not been able to get their act together including Antigua and Barbuda.
Warner yesterday expressed his disappointment with the Guyana situation but said he was at last seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. “One would have thought by now [Guyana] would have been on their third goal programme as many other countries have been and therefore there is some disappointment,” Warner said. “But having said that I’m heartened by the fact that I am now seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel and therefore I am quite sanguine, quite optimistic that in the next few months Guyana and to a lesser extent Antigua and Barbuda will be on track.”
GFF head Colin Klass yesterday told Stabroek Sport that the facility was already on track and that the FIFA funding was ready to be accessed.
“The realisation of the stadium…. right now as I said it’s already been approved. It’s now concrete approved. It’s now basically for us in Guyana to get the tender done which we are waiting on the architect to give us the final figure once that tender is done the money is set and ready to be released to Guyana which starts with a 10 per cent to get us going and after that the money will go directly to the accounts of the various consultants or contractors.”
After approximately 10 years, the GFF might finally be able to put this matter to rest once and for all.