The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) engaged in one-on-one interviews with local players before deciding which players were qualified to submit visa applications at the United States of America Embassy here in Kingston.
This was disclosed by GFF president Colin Klass yesterday.
Klass also disagreed with the reason given by his General Secretary, Noel Adonis, that a rotation policy by the federation was responsible for national player Devon Millington not being selected for the Golden Jaguars/Guatemala clash.
“I’m not certain about this rotation issue… I never knew that the federation really is into rotation, maybe because of the terminology I might have missed it,” said Klass at a press conference yesterday which was also attended by Adonis.
The Golden Jaguars opposed a team from Guatemala last week in a friendly international game in Atlanta, United States of America and among the players missing from that line up were Millington, Ronson Williams, Walter `Boyd’ Moore, Shawn `Bubbly’ Beveney and Anthony `Awo’ Abrams.
Millington’s mother, Denise Somerset, had questioned her son’s omission from the team calling the decision “unjust.”
Adonis, in attempting to clarify Millington’s omission had told this newspaper in a brief telephone interview that there were currently 25-30 national footballers, Millington included, who will benefit from the high performance exposure and these players will be rotated depending on the international assignment.
“Based on the assignment, the selection process will differ and we are looking to some of the other players on a rotational basis,” Adonis explained.
“This (omission) will not detract from Mr. Millington’s abilities as a player; this has nothing to do with Mr. Millington,” he added.
But yesterday Klass told the media a different story.
He explained that the federation had adopted a professional approach “to everything that it does these days”, even in terms of national players travelling abroad.
“Knowing that in 1987 we [GFF] had a very bad experience we decided that we are going to do one-on- one interviews with the players to have an insight based on some of the questions that they would’ve been forced to answer once they are in the US embassy for a Visa.
“We know what the form says, we know what happens, we know everything,” Klass added.
“After the interviews were completed and we sat with the technical staff we agreed on the basis of the interview and some of the information that we received, it was not in the best interest of the GFF at that point and time to go ahead and send these players to the United States,” Klass reported.
“Those players that qualified our interview, those were sent to the second interview, which is the real interview [At the U.S embassy], ours was just one to satisfy ourselves because we need to be satisfied, if we are not satisfied then we can’t ask any other authority to be satisfied,” he added.
In addition to the GFF interview, Klass highlighted that prior the interview, the GFF made a decision that most of the overseas based national players…“will be the first priority,” because of the transportation cost the GFF would have to incur if they had opted to take mostly local players to the United States for the friendly match.
“We understood that it may have weakened the strength of the team to some extent, but I can assure you that they were at least two players that were exposed there that we would not have seen under normal circumstances that definitely will be on Guyana’s team moving forward,” he declared.
“That is basically what transpired, so in the case of rotation we can’t rotate anything, we’re not rotating, we make a clear decision that we are going to do our thing first,” Klass said.
Speaking on the exclusion of another player Gregory `Jackie Chan’ Richardson Klass said: “’Jackie Chan’ made a public statement that he will never represent Guyana anymore… he doesn’t want anything to do with the GFF, for whatever reason, I don’t know… this is disrespectful to a nation, we cannot be the convenience anytime he feels like he turn up and it’s ok, it can’t be ok.
“Our colours have to be respected. It’s an honour to wear the national colours and if you don’t see it as an honour, then we don’t see it as an honour having you around… `Jackie Chan’ needs to be respectful to himself and this nation as a whole.
“It’s not about the best player; you can’t be the best player if you’re totally indisciplined. We prefer to allow the younger players to be exposed than to carry that level of indiscipline,” he added.
The GFF head said that a letter was sent to Richardson on his behavior, but there has been no official communication from Richardson to the GFF.
In relation to whether Richardson will regain a spot on the national team in the future, Klass stated:”There is room, there is always room and that is not for me to determine as to what happens when, but when that time comes, we will address the issue accordingly as of now there is nothing on the table for us to even deliberate.”
