Recently appointed Guyana Football Federation [GFF] General Secretary, Ian Alves said that the federation is awaiting funds from FIFA so as to pay outstanding sums owed to some national players.
Alves admitted that the federation still owes monies to the local Golden Jaguars’ International players for the CONCACAF Nations League and Gold Cup campaigns, as well as the 2017 Indonesia International Friendly.
“We are trying to rectify the situation. It is not of wanting to do it but we are waiting on FIFA for the availability of the funds,” Alves told this newspaper.
“The paperwork has done here in terms of how much we have to give to each,” he added.
Guyana opposed Aruba and Jamaica in the CONCACAF Nations League on November 15 and 18 respectively. They also played Indonesia on November 25, 2017.
Several Golden Jaguars’ Internationals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity disclosed, “They owe us bonus monies for the Gold Cup, which was played in June. They owe us US$450 per player and none of the locals have received their monies. They still owe for Indonesia which is around US$300 per player and they owe us for the Aruba and Jamaica game in the Nations League. They owe us US$900 per player for those games.”
According to the players, the federation has paid the overseas born players for the Aruba and Jamaica encounters.
“When we contact the manager, he tell us to call the GFF and that we working for the GFF and not him. They have paid all eight of the foreign-born players their monies from Aruba and Jamaica, only the locals have not gotten paid. That is really disrespectful to players and shows that they don’t have any interest in the local players. The locals were aware that foreign born players got paid in Jamaica and that is because we saw it in the group chat. In person the locals were told they would receive their monies in Guyana.”
Rawle Adams, Manager of the Golden Jaguars side, in an invited comment said: “Any comment on the national team should come from the GFF.”
The players revealed that a meeting was held on November 28 by the federation to address the outstanding arrears.
“Why they had meeting was because players were disgruntled and refused to train on Wednesday November 27 and they call the meeting which was held November 28 at the GFF office. The President [Wayne Forde] said FIFA has not paid them and when he receives the monies from FIFA then we will get paid, all the outstanding. They gave us until Monday which was days ago and no one has contacted us yet. We have not received a call or a message to say what is going on. They say it’s an in-house matter and we shouldn’t go to the media. But we can’t take it anymore, Christmas coming, we have bills to pay and families to look after.”
The players said that they were told that the federation decided to pay the overseas players because of the exchange rate.
“The president said the reason for playing the foreign players was because the exchange rate to send monies overseas would have been extra and that is why they choose to pay the foreign players and not the locals. Before the president said that, the manager stated that he made that decision to play foreign players and not locals. The president later said he made that decision and it was a GFF decision and it come from him. This is the disrespect, this shows they don’t respect us.
“The players coming in from overseas because the president stated that he not bringing a player from so far and he is on the bench…This was told to the local players. The coach don’t have a say in how the players are selected to play, once they bring a player from overseas he has to start. The whole thing about developing local players is fake, we are doing all the hard work and they playing. All the foreign players started against Aruba and Jamaica and the coach even had to apologize to Quillan Roberts for having him on the bench in the first two games, this occurred in front of the whole team. Different rules for the locals and for the foreigners when we are training. A simple way to look at it is the locals must use long socks and the foreigners can use any type.”
