Netherlands-based establishment Greenfields has been officially selected by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) to build the Guyana’s first ever Goal Project following the conclusion of the International Tender Process.
This disclosure was made by Guyana Football Federation (GFF) President Wayne Forde yesterday.
Forde confirmed the decision during an invited comment and said the Dutch corporation edged out fellow Netherlands-based entity Edel Grass after the biding process was narrowed down to two companies.
Founded in 2003, the company has installed more than 2500 pitches across the globe. They have also received the FIFA Preferred Producer for Football Title as well as similar accolades from the International Hockey Federation and the International Rugby Board.
“It means we are about to get the process going. We at the GFF now has to put out a local tender for our contractors that will be participating in the sub-base work before the turf is laid. That tender should be going out sometime next week,” said Forde.
Asked when the work will likely commence, he said: “It should not be later than the end of June for work to commence because we believe once we start then, we can have the artificial turf finished some time by the end of August-September.”
The facility, which will be constructed at the Providence Community Centre Ground, will be done in two phases.
The first phase of the project will be the installation of an artificial turf and the second phase will see infrastructure such as stands, lights, beach, Futsal training pitches, mini pitches and an administrative centre for the headquarters of the GFF being erected.
Former head of the GFF Normalization Committee, Clinton Urling, had brokered an agreement between the GFF and the Eccles/Ramsburg Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) for the location and was granted a 30-year lease for the land.The saga of Guyana’s first FIFA funded football facility has been long and tortuous with many stops and starts in the 17 years since Guyana was first identified as one of the countries to benefit from a US$400,000 football facility.
In 1999, Guyana, Belize, the Bahamas, Nicaragua and St Lucia were listed as countries to benefit from FIFA’s new initiative, the ‘Goal Project’ and two years later, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter visited Guyana for the historic turning of the sod for what was thought to be this country’s first football stadium on land under the control of the University of Guyana.
But, in one of the most embarrassing moments in this country’s football history the sod was never turned. Blatter was to later inform media operatives here that FIFA does not build stadia.
The building of stadia, he had declared, was the responsibility of governments. This was in stark contrast to what the then government had been told which was that FIFA was going to fund the stadium at a cost of US$20m.
Ten years later at a FIFA Congress in The Bahamas, disgraced former FIFA vice president Jack Warner told Stabroek Sport that he was disappointed with the fact that Guyana had yet to acquire the facility.
“One would have thought by now [Guyana] would have been on their third goal programme as many other countries have been and therefore there is some disappointment,” Warner had said.
“But having said that I’m heartened by the fact that I am now seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel and therefore I am quite sanguine, quite optimistic that in the next few months Guyana and to a lesser extent Antigua and Barbuda will be on track.”
In 2009 it was announced that Alki Investment and Trading Company Inc., had won the bid to construct the facility at Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo and that the project was scheduled to commence in November of that year.
Alki Investment Inc. would be responsible for the construction of the US$400,000 facility located at Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo and Klass speaking with Stabroek Sport yesterday said, “Well actually, they received their 10% of the money today (yesterday),” Klass had told Stabroek Sport in February of 2010.
Following Klass’ removal from office in the wake of the infamous cash for votes scandal which also toppled head of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) and CONCACAF, Franklin Wilson, then the most senior vice president of the GFF assumed the post of GFF president and in 2013 managed to receive a commitment from FIFA for US$500,000 for the same project.
Wilson was replaced by Christopher Matthias who subsequently decided that the Orangestein Project was not feasible and sought a plot of land behind the Synthetic Track at Leonora and FIFA subsequently replaced Matthias by the Urling led Normalisation Committee, which then brokered the deal for the land at Providence.
