Nominations for the election of a new executive to manage the affairs of football in Guyana closed yesterday with three possible candidates vying for the presidency.
The three are Christopher Matthias, General Secretary of the Georgetown Football Association, Alfred King Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Culture Youth and Sport and President of the Guyana Referees Council and Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major co-founder of the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation and Organising Secretary of the GFF.
Matthias was nominated by the GFA and seconded by the East Coast Football Association (ECFB), King was nominated by the Referees Council and seconded by the East Bank Football Association (EBFA) while Major was nominated by the West Demerara Football Association (WDFA) and seconded by the National Women’s Football Association.
The legitimacy of all the associations to put forward nominations will be known in the coming week when the electoral committee would have reviewed all the nominations.
General Secretary of the GFF Noel Adonis in an interview in front of the federation’s office said the committee will get to work immediately on the nominations adding that he was confident that the associations would have met the necessary requirements outlined in the constitution governing the federation.
“The GFF constitution articulates what is required by each one of the members of the federation on an annual basis to continue membership of the federation. So they are aware of that and so far they have been operating in accordance with those requirements,” Adonis said.
Meanwhile, Matthias who also was at the GFF office said, “It is indeed interesting and I am pleased that our fight for a democratic electoral process, which allows for many persons to have the opportunity of vying for any of the elected offices has succeeded.”
According to Matthias should he be given the opportunity to serve as President, among his first order of business would be constitutional reform.
“We will have to revisit the constitution of the GFF and have it reflect the entire consciousness, understanding and agreement of all the associations. There must be administrative refurbishing where the General Council becomes the boss over the executive and not the other way around. We are looking for club structures, looking for infrastructure developmental in all associations and definitely reward, award and justly distribute the finances of FIFA, and above all transparency and accountability.”
He went on:”Audited financial statements will be presented on a regular basis and we will turn it around where the budget will have to be approved by the General Council before a cent is spent. Presently what obtains is that the money is just spent and then the General Council has to sign on, on it. We will not allow that, and if it is so permitted we will seek to have our audited financial reports publicly circulated.”
Also at the GFF was President of the ECFA Rudolph Calendar who said that Matthias was the best person for the job.
“We were in a position to interview most of the candidates and out of the three persons that we considered; Mr. Matthias, the PS Ministry of Sports Alfred King and Mr. Joe Harmon we thought it best to keep anybody from the government and anybody from the opposition out of sports, football being one of the biggest sports in Guyana, and so we came up with our position that Mr. Matthias is the best candidate right now. The best candidate in terms of those that came forward for the position.”
Stabroek Sport will attempt to interview King and Major and publish these interviews in subsequent issues of the newspaper.
