Following the recent disbanding of the FIFA Development Department by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Chief Wayne Forde said he is unsure of the start date for the long awaited Goal Project.
Answering questions posed at the final press conference of the year held at the federation’s boardroom, Forde said “FIFA has been going through tremendous internal changes under the new leadership of President Infantino, to the extent that the entire FIFA Development arm has been dissolved. The office that was located in Jamaica has been relocated to Barbados and most of the key personnel within FIFA Development have been replaced. As far as I am aware, some have been given the option to reapply for their jobs in January 2017”.
According to Forde “As a consequence of that, all FIFA projects essentially have ground to a halt. We were visited by the representative from Greenfields [winner of the bid to lay the artificial turf], two weeks ago for some preliminary discussions as to when the project will commence and some of the key admin aspects that need to be sorted out. I am optimistic that we can actually see work on the project commencing by the last week of January, early February but all of it is dependent on the changes that are taking place at Zurich at this moment”.
He added “The former developmental office has been essentially dissolved so you would imagine that people who were very key and critical to the execution of these projects no longer are involved, new people are taking over and it will probably take some time but our project has advanced significantly, I think it is just a matter of contracts being signed and cheques being released for the work to actually start”.
“It is out of the GFF’s hand that is the key message here. We have done our part months ago, everything that they required of us we have satisfied, it’s now FIFA to deliver on their part” Forde said.
Guyana’s first Goal Project moved one step closer in becoming a reality as construction firm Dwain Ferdinand and Home Designs and Engineering Associates inked the contract for the initiative’s sub-base work on September 21st.
The entity, which is based in New Amsterdam, Berbice, won the contract during an extensive tender process, edging out Courtney Benn Constructing Services following an assessment procedure conducted by a three member Evaluation Committee.
The victorious bidder tabled an offer of $128,650,927 while Courtney Benn Contracting Services submitted a bid for $152,781,628 to the Evaluation Committee. This body, which subsequently adjusted the victorious offer to $128,982,471, consisted of Chairman Rabin Chandarpal, Nigel Hinds and Hector Edwards.
Also, Netherlands-based establishment Greenfields has been officially selected by FIFA to build the Goal Project following the conclusion of the International Tender Process.
Greenfields edged out fellow Netherlands-based entity Edel Grass after the bidding process was narrowed down to two companies.
