Everyone knows that footballers are well paid for playing the beautiful game.
That is, except in Guyana, where some are not paid at all.
When it comes to representing this country of their birth, all some local footballers receive is the honour and whatever glory there is. Definitely not the money.
The average salary in the English Premier League Football for professional footballers is around 40-45, 000 pounds a week.
As such, footballers can live comfortably from their skills at heading, passing, trapping and shooting a football.
In Guyana things are vastly different. There is no professional league and as such, footballers play the sport for love not money.
Those blessed with supreme talent and skill, sometimes get an opportunity to play for the national team where, it seems, some get paid and some don’t.
That is according to the General Secretary of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Ian Alves who admitted to this newspaper that while some players were paid, other players were still owed monies for representing this country at this year’s CONCACAF Nations League and Gold Cup tournaments.
In fact, some members of the Golden Jaguars team (as the national football team is known) which played Indonesia in Indonesia in November of 2017 are shockingly, still to be paid.
Last year, in an interview with this newspaper, former Golden Jaguars International Chris Nurse said that the GFF was yet to pay some players who had represented the national team in 2012.
Whether the GFF has rectified that situation is unclear but this is what Nurse told Stabroek Sport in the interview: “Since 2012, players are still owed money from the Mexico fiasco. Many of those players have now walked away from Guyana football and you no longer see or hear from them because of how they have been treated over time.”
Small wonder that the GFF is faced with competition from the many indoor Fustal and now street ball tournaments where, at least, the players are being paid.
The now defunct Kashif and Shanghai tournament was eagerly looked forward to by footballers and football fans alike as it brought a level of professionalism where the players were not only paid but paid properly.
The success story that was the Kashif and Shanghai year-end football extravaganza, shows what can be achieved with proper planning and funding.
After the Kashif and Shanghai tournament ended, the end-of-year football tournaments run by the Georgetown and Linden Football Sub-Associations also enjoyed success.
Under this current administration some strides have been made in some aspects of the game’s development mainly because of FIFA reforms following the infamous cash-for-votes scandal that rocked the Caribbean but there is still work to be done and the GFF must embrace this challenge by first recognising the importance of the local players and then ensuring that not only are they paid, but paid properly and promptly.
The problem between the players and the administration goes way back to the Colin Klass era.
In 2008, the Golden Jaguars team which participated in the Group H matches of the Digicel Caribbean Cup tournament in Trinidad, threatened to retire from the sport until then president of the GFF Klass stepped down.
The players reportedly met with Klass at 3am outside of the Crown Plaza Hotel in Trinidad and Tobago (after drawing 1-1 with Trinidad and Tobago in their final group match) as Klass was about to return to Guyana.
The players told him that they would not represent Guyana any longer if he remained president of the GFF.
According to reports, the players complained of poor standards, poor training equipment, the poor state of encampment, monies outstanding and constant disorganization during international duty.
Then captain of the team Charles `Lily’ Pollard had told this newspaper that the decision was made because the players felt they had had enough of the ill treatment from the Klass-led GFF.
“This move is to make sure that our future generation doesn’t suffer the same fate like us. For far too long we have had to contend with held up in allowances, asking for proper conditions for our camps among plenty other things,” Pollard had said then.
Sounds familiar.
Yes it does. The issue of not paying the local players go back to a previous administration, a previous era.
According to Alves, the GFF was aware that monies were outstanding to some players and the GFF was awaiting funds from FIFA following which the situation would be rectified.
Alves did not disclose the nature of the funding the GFF was awaiting from the world governing body but one would assume that it is the annual subvention.
While one can understand (but not condone) the delay in paying the players for the Nations League and Gold Cup tournaments which were held this year, it is unfathomable how the GFF can owe players for a match played in 2017 since they would obviously have had subvention for that year by now.
One is also not clear how players are paid as the disgruntled faction of local players told this newspaper that while they have not been paid, their overseas counterparts have received remuneration for the Nations League and the Gold Cup tournaments, thereby raising the spectre of discrimination of the local players by the GFF.
In submitting their request for funding from FIFA, one would suppose that the GFF would include details of the tournaments they intend to participate in including the budget for airfare, accommodation and the payment of the players.
Also did the GFF receive any of the gate receipts or television revenue from the two tournaments?
If they did then surely they could have paid the players from their share of that revenue.
It is unclear whether the players did sign contracts and what the stipulations regarding the payment of the players were.
According to their financial report for 2018 the GFF received $405,157,603 in financial grants from FIFA, CONCACAF and CFU.
FIFA funding totaled $328,524,418 while CONCACAF’s aid amounted to $58,765,548. CFU’s funding was $17,867,637.
Couldn’t the Indonesia players be paid from that princely sum?
The GFF, as trustees of the sport has shown the local players scant respect by their actions which brings us back to what Nurse said in his interview with this newspaper.
“Football needs reparations, however, those guilty of crimes against the sport and its players need to be held accountable.”
