By Jeff Trotman
Contending that the K&$ organization has lost its premier role in football because it was caught in the middle of two corporate giants, one of its principals Kashif Mohammed has said that it will soldier on in the area of school soccer and he also gave a detailed explanation of its decision to move its highly anticipated finals from Linden to the Providence Stadium.
At a forum in Linden on Thursday Mohammed said K&S’s changed circumstances was a blessing in disguise. “As God’s plan started to unfold, we realized that we were directed here to do what we are about to do. It’s definitely picking up a nice momentum and I don’t think you can go wrong when you are following God’s plan.”
The exercise was to inform the Linden community on the Kashif and Shanghai inaugural inter school football tournament entitled: Elite Next Generation Football Tournament in which twenty-four teams, including four from Linden will participate.
The discussion organized by the Linden Fund Trust was held at the LEN Building, Republic Avenue, Linden. Mohammed said the Kashif and Shanghai organization sees the tournament as an opportunity to continue to work with the Linden community in which it has “a vested interest in two separate ways”. The first is to use the Elite Next Generation Football Tournament as a springboard through which the organization can develop the talent of youngsters, who might one day wear national colours and who might one day achieve a measure of success at the international level”.
He said as the collaboration unfolds, the organization wants “to work more closely with the youngsters, their schools and their communities to help develop those talents and sharpen those skills as well as inculcate those disciplines that would make these youngsters better athletes”.
He said the second interest is to take the venture beyond football “to partner with the Ministry of Education and with their sponsors for the total development of the youngsters. He said the prizes given during the tournament will reflect Kashif and Shanghai’s concern for the intellectual growth of the youngsters.
“We are examining possibilities in the areas such as scholarships so that those who wish to do so can continue to enjoy playing football while pursuing their chosen professional and intellectual aspirations.” He said in this regard, the organization is collaborating with Garth Nelson a fellow Lindener, residing in the USA to seek out scholarships in the USA for local youngsters.
He said the organization met recently with the Ministry of Education which has made a request to the Ministry of Sports to “work on ten local scholarships for our youngsters”.
He said Nelson will shortly be coming to Guyana with Dwayne Rosario, one of Canada’s most talented footballers, who is of Guyanese parentage and plays Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States. Mohammed said that Rosario, who has been described by former French international soccer star, Thierry Henry as an exceptional talent, will be holding a soccer clinic in Linden for fifty youngsters between the ages of ten and eighteen years.
He said that while as Lindeners, the principals of the Kashif and Shanghai organization are interested in promoting talented young Linden footballers, they have an obligation to developing football throughout Guyana and they have been instrumental in providing the opportunity for 55 Guyanese to play professional football in Trinidad and Tobago and further afield – many of whom were Lindeners.
Stressing that the Kashif and Shanghai organization’s commitment to football remains undiminished, Mohammed said: “We believe that the future of football in Guyana lies in the hands of our youngsters.”
He said that the organization has no regrets and it is fully endorsed in its new initiative.
Selfishness
In his candid response to the media, an impassioned Mohammed attempted to confute the widely circulated allegation that they removed the New Year’s Day final of their annual tournament several years ago because of greedy, selfish motives.
He said the organization did not want to move the final away from Linden but the number of patrons had outgrown the capacity of the Mackenzie Sports Club and the conditions under which Kashif and Shanghai had proposed to upgrade the facilities of the ground were rebuffed by the club’s management.
He said that the organization made makeshift arrangements to accommodate patrons in the open air beyond the northern touchline of the pitch. “You know that it rains all December,” Mohammed explained. “The place used to be muddy but, hear what, people used to come and experience the event. It was not a comfortable experience for people. I can remember a number of times, the field was so heavy that we had to bring sawdust, sand and all kinds just to make the place playable on New Year’s Day.”
He said in an effort to keep the final in Linden the Kashif and Shanghai organization approached the EU-funded Linden Economic Advancement Programme (LEAP) and was given $1M and was asked by LEAP to put together a plan for the development of the Mackenzie Sports Club.
“We got an architect and a local engineer (and) Malvin DeClou and they inspected the ground. We also got local contractors – the guys, who look after the stadium and one of the mining companies that was operating in Linden at the time. They all inspected the field and gave a estimate of the cost of resurfacing the ground. The cost of rebuilding the whole Mackenzie Sports Club the way we wanted it was in the vicinity of $100M (US$0.5M). We put together the plan.”
He said, according to the architect’s drawing, the Mackenzie Sports Club would have been able to accommodate eight thousand patrons in stands. “We got all the drawings together that I still have and we met with the Mackenzie Sports Club. We sent off a letter to the town council and we spoke to sponsors.”
Mohammed said Banks DIH and GT&T were interested in building stands. He said the Linden Town Council took a long time to respond to their letter and when it eventually did, it did not approve the proposal.
He added that the Mackenzie Sports Club finally asked the Kashif and Shanghai organization what it wanted should the project be implemented and the organization said that it was pumping $100M into developing the facilities so it would want ten rent free years of running the tournament. According to Mohammed, their request was refused.
He added: “Because of the negativity behind this whole thing now, we realize that our football was growing and growing and we just could not stay in Linden now when you have a national stadium where the surf – and when it rains for twenty-four continuous hours, football could be played and nobody is running and sliding. So, we moved the football. I know it was a little tough for the business situation in Linden. We had a forum right here; we came and explained to them what was happening. I was right here showing them the plans and everything. We invited Linden to come out – all the people – Mr. Sam Wright, Horace James and Pastor Selwyn Sills were the only upstanding Linden citizens, who came. The other people who turned out were ordinary man in the street.
“So, we were forced to move because of that situation. Had it been where the ground was allowed to be developed our football would probably have remained right here in Linden,” Mohammed concluded.
