The Milo Under-23 Football tournament was launched yesterday with president of the Fruta Conquerors Football Club Marlan Cole saying that the mobilisation of the sport is to prevent the youths from falling prey to social vices.
Cole, speaking in the boardroom of the Beepat building on Regent Street, said that football was currently faced with many challenges and due to these the sport has been at a virtual standstill in the city. This prompted the Fruta Conquerors executive, organisers of the tournament, to approach the sponsors.
The tournament was initially an event organized by the Georgetown Football Association (GFA) but an ongoing impasse between that organization and the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) resulted in the executive committee of the Fruta Conquerors Football Club picking up the slack.
“We have a lot of challenges in football in Georgetown and while these challenges present themselves we see that no competitive football is being played. So we thought it best to help out the sport by approaching Beepat’s to sponsor the tournament,” said Cole.
“We want to make sure we don’t lose our young athletes to the ills of society such as drugs, crime and school dropout so we hope we get the entire support of the football fraternity throughout this tournament”.
He concluded, “Mostly we would like the support of the federation (GFF, the local governing body for football) because the decision made by them can affect the sport directly and indirectly.”
The tournament will see 16 teams from