Guyana Football Federation (GFF) president Wayne Forde said yesterday that the National Training Centre at Providence is close to being completed adding that lighting is to be installed by October.
“Things are pretty close to completion at this phase which are the dorms, kitchen, gym and all the technical facilities,” said Forde at yesterday’s press conference.
“We are about to place an order for the furnishing, we are spending a few weeks going through all the bits and pieces for the bed, the gym equipment, the equipment for the kitchen. You will see the emphasis we placed on high quality construction of the facility,” he added.
Forde further said when the facility is completed it will be used for training of national teams encampment and suchlike.
“Of course you know once this is up and running, we will have as much as we wish, national team camps specially from our U20 all the way down. I would say we are in a good place, the tender is out for the lights. I think we have two local companies participating and a couple of international companies. That tender will be closed sometime at the end of July and then the committee will look at it and then make the selection then FIFA procurement gets involved.
“Looking ahead I would say September-October we will see the lighting going up. The lighting is high quality and then very soon we will be able to reveal to the public the overall site development plan which has a pavilion,” he added.
The facility, which was official commissioned May 13th 2019, is being constructed in two phases.
The first phase of the project was the installation of the artificial turf.
The second phase will witness infrastructure such as stands, lights, beach, Futsal training pitches, mini pitches and an administrative centre for the headquarters of the GFF being erected.
Former head of the GFF Normalization Committee, Clinton Urling, had brokered an agreement between the GFF and the Eccles/Ramsburg Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) for the location and was granted a 30-year lease for the land.
Forde also disclosed that the New Amsterdam and Golden Grove facilities are progressing at varying degrees due to the inclement weather which has hampered construction.
Forde expounded, “The weather really has been a challenge there but more progress has been made in New Amsterdam compared to what has been made in Golden Grove.
According to Forde in trying to access the ground, there is a muddy patch coming in and it has been horrific for the truck drivers who have had to back off until the weather breaks.
“In New Amsterdam, the walls are up and they are progressing fairly well. We are putting in the additional application for those two grounds which will be surface and lighting and we are also looking at some portable bleachers.
“As soon we get those under control we will be shifting our focus to two other associations. Very likely it will be Linden and the West Demerara. The idea is to have in each association, a really good quality venue where they can play their tournaments year round. We are still playing with the idea of doing all weather turfs but I don’t know how that will affect our budget but we will see how that goes.”
Asked about the status of the Durban Park project, Forde disclosed, “The only setback we have had with that is that FIFA made it absolutely clear to us that until the GFF National Training Center is certified as a technical development center, meaning that this facility is commissioned and up and running and the teams are utilizing it, only then will we permitted to invest any money in Durban Park. So while we are doing a lot of designing and engineering behind the scenes, the unfortunate reality is that, for the obvious reason they want to see things move forward here first before we start that.”
He added, “That is also a project that we are determined to go as far as possible. I think we have an opportunity to really bring in a large community of stakeholders into that project because of where it is located and the opportunity for branding. I think we will get a community of partners to do that facility.”
