Otis James, President of the largest football association under the umbrella of the GFF, the Georgetown Football Association (GFA), says that the current Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous effect of the state of local football and has affected the plans of the entity.
Speaking exclusively with Stabroek Sport, James, who was elected to office in November 2019, said, “This situation has had an adverse effect on the association’s football plan. The GFA has to start back from scratch and go back to drawing board and put things in place. We have to work with the GFF and reset our entire calendar of events. The current situation has had a major effort on us.”
He opined, “First of all we don’t have a direct office to work from and because we work from place to place, we really can’t move around due to the effects of the virus. Everyone works from different locations, at the end of the day we try to do things but we can’t do anything much. The biggest worry is how we will deal with sponsorship and going to companies and soliciting funding after this epidemic and the company has lost millions. How are we going to them when companies have lost millions in the world? This is a big problem globally for football.”
According to James, several programmes and tournaments, which would have placed emphasis on various levels of the sport, have to be shelved due to the current atmosphere.
He revealed, “The U13 boys event was supposed to start in the April and that is now on the hold. The April tournament doesn’t look possible at the moment because of the current situation so it’s off definitely and will be rescheduled for a later date. Also the GFA Mega Senior League would have already started which now we have to put a hold on. The Independence Knockout Cup which was supposed to provide a break for the league is also postponed. The GFA Senior Women’s League is also on a hold. There were also the U17 and U20 boys tournaments that were scheduled to start and now have to be shelved. It has had a really serious effect on everything. All these events will have to be rescheduled at the earliest possible date as we try to get through this crisis together.”
James, who also served as a former FIFA International Referee, declared that the setback for the sport, financially or otherwise, will be enormous because the timeline for the atmosphere to be remedied is unknown.
He added, “Honestly it will have a huge setback even when the issue is fixed because we will have to start from scratch. Everything we had planned and wanted to get done, the courses and the tournaments we wanted to start, all will have to basically start from zero. I am calling on everyone in the country to take caution and follow the guidelines announced by the Ministry of Health. We have to take caution with the social gathering and don’t take nothing for granted.”
