By Iva Wharton
The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) has replied to the Georgetown Football Association’s (GFA) letter seeking a resolution of the current impasse and has mandated that the GFA perform a number of actions before the matter is settled.
“Subject to the involvement and approval of our respective attorneys we would be willing and prepared to discuss implementation of the under mentioned agenda, in the order given: 1- Withdrawal of the High Court order by the GFA, 2 – Fulfillment of the Court Order that the GFA meets the costs of the adjourned GFF May 2011 Congress, 3 – Implementation of the provisions of the GFA Constitution for the Election of Executives of the GFA and 4- Observance of the sanctions provided for the GFF and FIFA Constitutions for breaches committed by Members and Affiliates.”
The response from the GFF comes one week after the GFA wrote the federation inviting it to a meeting to resolve the impasse.
According to the GFA it was seeking to concretize several items that were agreed to at a previous meeting between the two sides.
Those are: 1. That the GFF will provide the GFA with all original invoices pertaining to the hosting of the postponed GFF’s Annual General Meeting, so as to enable the GFA to fulfill its promise of undertaking the cost of the said postponed 2011 Annual General Meeting; 2. Both the GFF and the GFA will appear before the Honourable Judge and formally establish the immediate restoration of all constitutional/voting rights of the GFA, upon the withdrawal of the High Court action by the GFA; 3. The GFF will establish all constitutional committees required by the constitution and communicate the same to all associations and no disciplinary action will be taken against any player, club, executive and/or official of the GFA or any association, unless due process is observed and 4. The GFA will in accordance with its constitution, hold its election of office bearers without the requirement for an arbitration panel to decide whether or not this should be done.
The GFA said it was concerned with the attempts of the federation to undermine its end of year tournament. 1. The attempts to induce our players, clubs, executives, referee officials, supporters and sponsors to leave the association; 2. The inaccurate utterances made by members of the GFF; 3. The booking of all venues so as to prevent the successful hosting of the second Annual Banks Beer/GFA Knock out tournament and 4. The threats made to members of our General Council and our sister associations, who are currently providing distinguish service at the national level.
The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) in their letter which was addressed to the president of the Georgetown Football Association (GFA), Vernon Burnett said the federation was concerned and saddened with the tone and the baseless allegations contained in the letter it received from the association.
“The correspondence can be viewed as being discourteous and disrespectful to its parent body and organization which is recognized by FIFA, CONCACAF, the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) and other national and international institutions as being the sole entity with the responsibility to develop, improve, promote, regulate and control the sport of Association Football throughout Guyana”.
The letter, which was dated November 19, stated that the federation remains ready to consider issues associated with the resolution of the impasse once those conform to the provisions and stipulations of the Georgetown Football Association (GFA), GFF and FIFA constitutions.
This is the second year that Banks DIH, under its Banks Beer brand is collaborating with the GFA to host the end-of-year tournament.
The two sides have been at loggerheads for close to two years with each side blaming the other for not wanting to bring the impasse to an end.
Recently, Alpha United President Odinga Lumumba launched a petition calling on Guyanese to join with him in an effort to end the impasse. Lumumba said should the two sides fail to find a solution by December 31, 2012 then he would be advocating for the formation of a new body that will seek recognition from FIFA to replace the current GFF executive.
