Alpha United President Odinga Lumumba says that his club, Alpha United, will participate in the ongoing Georgetown Football Association (GFA)/Banks DIH President Super League tournament.
Speaking at a media briefing yesterday at Water Chris Hotel, Waterloo Street, Lumumba said: “Our players and executives at Alpha, including those who are playing in the national team (Golden Jaguars) have taken the position to play in the GFA League. This is so for many reasons and the fundamental one is because football is not playing in Guyana, which everyone is aware of.”
And voicing his disillusionment with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) he noted that his club, the national champions, had been waiting on the Super League to commence. The tournament is financed by FIFA, he said, but he has no idea where the money has gone.
“However, we have until December to have the Super League back in action for the year; but overall it’s a lot of confusion at the moment.”
Lumumba disclosed that he wrote FIFA last week asking them about what had happened to the Super League but they have not responded so far. The current Guyana national football team has five regular representatives from Alpha United along with national assistant coach Wayne Dover. The players are goal keepers Richard Reynolds and Ronson Williams, strikers Anthony Abrahams and Dwight Peters and utility mid-fielder Dwaine Jacobs.
Lumumba said further that recent decisions coming out of the GFF/GFA court hearing also puts the onus on his club to participate in the current tournament.
“The thing is, there is a court order that states the GFA should not be interfered with by the GFF, so we have an obligation to play because of that. If we don’t play we can be threatened or penalized by the GFA – so we are in a box basically.”
He continued: “Our players have been training all year so we will play in the tournament. So we are hoping by Sunday midday that the GFF can give us a clear position on why we can’t play and what are the ramifications. We plan also to write FIFA to tell them about these problems and to see how this matter can be sorted out.”
Lumumba also questioned how the GFF could ban certain clubs and still have their players representing the national team. “The interesting thing is if you ban a club you also ban the players so there is a contradiction here right now since how can the GFF ban so many clubs, but yet use those clubs’ players in the national team for the current FIFA 2014 World Cup qualification.”
Declaring that this “is a serious issue”, Lumumba said that he plans to write the GFF right away in order to obtain a clear understanding from them or even from FIFA or CONCACAF on how to proceed. He also said that he had concerns about the number of foreign players in the current national team, adding that in his view too many of the current Golden Jaguars squad members are foreign-born players.
“It bothers me a bit, since it could have a negative effect on the local players involved in the national team, since you are basically telling the majority of local players, that they are not good enough to represent the country. This is sad and is one of the reasons I have been consistently calling for the formation of a professional league here in Guyana.”
