Calling for fans to be put at the centre of the `beautiful game’, businessman Faizal Khan yesterday said that football here needs a breath of fresh air and he threw his support behind Troy Cadogan for the presidency of the GFF.
In a statement to the media yesterday, Khan, a FIFA-licensed agent, declined his nomination for a position on the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Executive Committee and made a clarion call for a radical shift from the bickering that has set back the game here.
“On opening the newspapers on Sunday morning, I realised I had been nominated by the GFA to run in the upcoming Guyana Football Federation elections for an Executive Member post. I am very flattered to have won this nomination and that clubs in Georgetown believe I can compete in a formal role at National level to help build Guyanese football further than I have been allowed thus far. Football is my first love and I owe it a lot from all the good it has brought my life. Before anything else in the sport, I am a football fan first”, his statement said.
He added that he wasn’t briefed beforehand that he was a candidate or invited to the meeting on Saturday when the GFA voting took place.
“I still have no idea as to what the vision and the plan to further develop Guyana football internationally is. On taking the entire landscape and experience I have had so far into consideration, along with where we are as a developing football country, after some deep thinking it is with regret that I must decline this nomination”, Khan said.
Khan said the new team to run Guyana’s football will have its work cut out for it. He said that Guyana has a talented pool of national players all over the world who along with their clubs must be communicated with regularly on the national programme if the country is to get the best out of them.
“The Guyana National team are currently disillusioned with the administration and confidence must be instilled again, we have just come out of a 2 year period of internal conflict which FIFA took less than 2 hours to solve. This same conflict has helped shun business and government from supporting football financially”, Khan argued. He said that the new team must realise that the most important people in football are the fans.
“It is the fans who pay the admission to watch the games, it is the fan that pays the money for a yellow jersey, it is the fan who pays the salaries of the players and the administration. The new team running Guyanese football must understand and accept this right away. We now must embrace and look after the fans far more if we are to reach our full potential as a football Nation”, Khan contended.
By the same token he said that the fans must also understand that following the Guyana football team is like a marriage.
“You must stick together through the good and bad times and keep supporting one another throughout both.”
Guyana’s football, he posited, now needs a “breath of fresh air, a new lease of life, confidence from the private sector and government must be restored and quickly.”
He then threw his support behind Cadogan.
“Troy is a seasoned businessman, loves the game and understands football is now a business and must be run like one. As long as Troy Cadogan is willing to embrace all who love and can help support the sport, he will always have my full support. I feel Mr. Cadogan can lead and organise Guyana Football for us to become the undisputed Champions of the Caribbean and a real force to be reckoned with in CONCACAF football”, Khan stated.