Last Saturday, at the Guyana Pegasus Hotel, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), for the second time in three months, hosted an Extraordi-nary Congress. The primary item on the agenda on this occasion was the elections of the GFF executive, whose incumbent’s term in office was due to expire on November 13th.
Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) representative Marco Leal, Chief Officer of Member Associations oversaw the proceedings on behalf of FIFA and CONCACAF. The only slate of candidates nominated was that of the retiring executive, who were duly reelected to serve for another four-year term.
The other significant developments at the congress were the passing of the 2020 Budget and the Sexual Harassment Policy. The latter subject had garnered much attention following allegations of sexual harassment of female referees by match officials and administrators. Following recommendations from a Commission of Inquiry, one senior official was dismissed, whilst another was provisionally suspended.
At the press conference following the Congress, Wayne Forde, the reelected GFF President, acknowledged that, “… we recognize and we accept that there has been a tremendous reduction in the playing of organized football across Guyana, and for the first six months of my new tenure we will be making tremendous investments financially resource wise and capacity wise, to help our members to get to the level of organising football within their jurisdiction.” In the longer term, he pointed towards the completion of the National Training Centre.
According to the 2018 Audited Financial Statements which were presented at the Extra-ordinary Congress (at which, it is worth noting, the GFF’s auditors were not in attendance) held in August at the National Racquet Centre, the GFF were recipients of $405,157,603 in financial grants from FIFA ($328,524,418), CONCACAF ($58,765,548) and the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) ($17,867,637). In the previous year, financial grants from FIFA and CONCACAF had amounted to $230,414,916. Thus, the total amount of financial assistance received by the GFF in the two years totaled $635,572,519, not including local sponsorship.
It is understood that the GFF has lots of expenses to cover in the administration of local football, as evidenced by the audited statements. However, despite having received these large sums of money, along with further grants for 2019, poor fiscal management has placed the GFF in a rather embarrassing position.
It is an accepted fact that players and clubs are owed prize monies and appearance fees for the Elite League which last saw action on the 29th May. Referees are also indebted for the aforementioned as well as several other competitions staged over a two-year period. National players are allegedly still owed appearance fees for an international played in Indonesia in 2017 and financial bonuses for matches in the Gold Cup held in June in the USA.
In July, Guyana was forced to withdraw, for financial reasons, from the Men’s 2020 Olympic Qualifiers which were held in Jamaica. The Under-23 tournament was the ideal follow-up tournament for the development of the projected national squad, many of whom would have participated last Novem-ber in the 2018 CONCACAF Under-20 Champion-ships in Florida, which served as the qualifying tournament for the 2019 FIFA Under-20 World Cup and the 2019 Pan American Games Football Tournament.
After four years in office, during which there were massive infusions of funds courtesy of FIFA and CONCACAF, the Forde Administration cannot lay claim to having made any significant development in the standard of local football or to the overall state of the game.
Now, they have been re-elected for another four year term. Can they get their act together, extricate the GFF from this financial quagmire, and focus on the development of the game across Guyana? Passing of budgets and policies, and the making of promises and projections will not suffice. The clock is ticking and the players, who have been deprived of the opportunities to develop their skill sets, are still patiently waiting on the GFF.
