—asks Donald Duff
A friend of mine once told me that he did not anticipate Guyana qualifying for the World Cup finals in his lifetime.
His reasons.
He blamed the poor standard of football played locally; the lack of proper infrastructure for the sport and the fact that neither the government nor the governing body for football seemed to have any goals (pardon the pun) in getting the national football team anywhere near the World Cup finals.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup football competition is well and truly underway, upsets and all, and the question on everyone’s lips is…. “Who will win the World Cup?
At the time of writing two of the top four teams France and (shockingly) defending champions Italy have already been booted from the competition which shows just how difficult advancing to the group stage, let alone winning the entire competition, really is.
Since 1930 when the World Cup competition began, under then president Jules Rimet, up until the previous tournament in 2006, Brazil has won the tournament a record five times.
Added to the fact that they have played in every World Cup finals since 1930 (the competition was not held in 1942 and 1946 because of World War II) makes Brazil, as always, the team to beat.
—Caribbean at the World Cup Finals
In the previous 18 instances where the World Cup Finals was staged only three Caribbean football teams have managed to qualify.
Haiti qualified at the 10th staging of the competition in the 1974 Finals in West Germany.
Twenty four years later another Caribbean team qualified for the 1998 World Cup Finals in France.
Jamaica’s `Reggae Boyz’ created history when they became the first English-speaking Caribbean country to qualify for the World Cup Finals.
It took another eight years before another Caribbean country, one famous for steel pan and oil, to qualify for the World Cup Finals.
Trinidad’s `Soca Warriors’ qualified for the 2006 Finals in Germany earning the distinction of being the smallest nation ever to qualify for the Finals.
The Trinidadians had twice come close twice before in 1974, when they fell short of qualifying by a mere two points and again in 1990 when the `Strike Squad’ lost 0-1 to the United States of America.
—Guyana at the World Cup
Can Guyana be the fourth Caribbean country to reach the World Cup finals?
My friend does not think so.
Between 1930 and 1974 Guyana did not enter the competition but in the period 1978-1998 when they did participate they failed to qualify.
Suspended by FIFA for the 2002 competition, Guyana resumed its quest in the 2006 and 2010 qualifiers but again failed. Their nemesis in most cases continue to be neighbours Suriname although some will argue that the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) is the biggest stumbling block to the national team’s advancement in international soccer.
The Guyana team had begun to show some sort of progress during the period when Jamaal Shabazz was named Technical Director of the `Golden Jaguars’ as the national soccer team is now known.
In 2007 they reached their highest ever FIFA ranking of 90th but has since then slipped to 122 where they currently reside.
“The sport of football cannot work without sponsorship. Football (playing) costs a lot of money and preparation for World Cup matches has a huge cost attached to it,” Shabazz told this newspaper.
—Getting there
So is getting to the World Cup finals only for those countries with big budgets for football development? The answer is no.
According to FIFA president Sepp Blatter, The objective of going to the World Cup is on the agenda of practically all the national associations of FIFA.
“The way to go there is long and is hard because everybody wants to go and there is a big struggle in all the continents,” Blatter told Stabroek Sport at the last FIFA Congress in The Bahamas.
Blatter said in planning for the future, Caribbean countries need to look towards the younger players and to implement professional or semi-professional leagues.
“The problem with the small islands is that they are small, and though they have the quality players, the number of the quality players is smaller than in others.
“We have 208 national associations and when you look backwards and you see powerhouses like China and India… China was once in the World Cup in the past.
“India, they would also like to go to the World Cup finals, one billion people and more. It‘s not only the number of people but it’s also the programmes you put together,” he pointed out.
—Help yourselves
Austin `Jack’ Warner FIFA vice president and president of CONCACAF is perhaps the single biggest factor in Trinidad’s football advancement and Warner’s message to Caribbean football associations is “Help yourselves.”
Warner, though, feels that FIFA can assist in some regard.
Responding to questions from Stabroek Sport at the last FIFA Congress, pertaining to the respective roles of FIFA and CONCACAF in bringing Caribbean football up to competitive levels said: “Our goal must be to assist them through courses and programmes especially of course, courses in referee development; courses in sports medicine; courses in football administration and also coaching so as to bring them up to acceptable levels,” said Warner.
He added: “We can’t actually give them a fish but we will teach them how to fish and that eventually they will be able to raise their football by their own bootstraps and we have given them the platform, so to speak, to do this.”
— Can Guyana qualify for World Cup 2014?
The single biggest impediment to Guyana’s football development is undoubtedly the president of the GFF Colin Klass.
Klass has presided over the GFF for close to two decades but his tenure has not been wholly popular.
While Klass has managed to hold on to the top post he has had to face numerous challenges most of which he has managed to overcome.
His most recent challenge came following the last Digicel Cup football tournament in 2008 when the Golden Jaguars openly rebelled against his leadership.
The mutiny by the players against Klass was the latest rejection of his leadership by those concerned with the stagnation of the game here despite an annual FIFA subvention of US$250,000.
“There are no ifs and buts about it, unless embattled president of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Colin Klass resigns, football in Guyana will remain stagnant,” former national coach Mervyn ‘Pug’ Wilson said then in reaction to the players ultimatum.
Despite the objections, Klass has hung on to the presidency defiantly, in opposition to those who dare to defy him including the executive of the previous Georgetown Football Association (GFA).
Earlier this year following the inability of the GFA to stage elections, Klass removed the entire executive and installed an Interim Management Committee which to the best of knowledge is yet to function.
Klass, it can be argued seems less interested in Guyana’s national team going to the World Cup finals as long as he does.
In South Africa, Klass along with General Secretary Noel Adonis and Organising Secretary Aubrey `Shanghai’ Major were part of a four-member Guyana delegation to South Africa.
The identity of the fourth person travelling with Klass is not yet known but sources told Stabroek Sport that it is highly unlikely that the person was a member of the GFF.
—Come 2014
The next World Cup competition will be staged in Brazil in another four years time.
It will be the 20th staging of the event and the second time that Brazil would have hosted the tournament.
It will also be the first time that the tournament will be hosted in a South American country following Argentina’s staging of the 1978 event.
At its last congress in The Bahamas FIFA announced the 12 host cities that will stage matches come 2014. Those cities are Bele Horizonte, Brasilia, Curitaba, Fortaleza, Cuiaba, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio De Janerio, Salvador and Sao Paulo.
The challenge for the GFF is to be represented in 2014 at the tournament which will be held in our own backyard.
If the GFF is serious about Guyana qualifying for the 2014 World Cup they should immediately set up a committee tasked with plotting the course for a successful World Cup campaign.
A fund raising drive should start simultaneously.
The committee should review the `Soca Warriors’ and `Reggae Boyz’ successful campaigns which entailed the use of overseas based players.
Scouts should be immediately tasked with the responsibility of seeking out far and wide those players who have professional experience and whose parents are Guyanese.
Additionally players who have the potential to make the national team come 2014 should be assisted in landing stints at clubs where they could be exposed to a higher standard of play than the GFF Super League.
To make the top four or five teams in the CONCACAF zone is not impossible even though extremely difficult.
Let us see if the GFF has what it takes to successfully carry out a campaign for the Golden Jaguars to be in Brazil in four years time.
My friend will be glad to know that they did it.