On 23rd September, this newspaper carried an article in which a mother related the frustration she was enduring in her attempts to secure video footage of her daughter from the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) to fulfil the request of an international scout.
The GFF took severe umbrage with Stabroek News’ (SN) presentation of this discouraging development and released a statement to the media. It followed up with a letter last Thursday to the Guyana Press Association complaining about our reporter, Duncan Saul’s coverage and requesting that disciplinary action be taken against him. After wading through these two very lengthy epistles, John Public is no doubt curious or confused, or both, about this storm brewing in a teacup.
In an exclusive interview with this newspaper, Finola Parvattan-Trim, the mother of Jalade Trim, spoke about the push around she has suffered whilst pleading for the available video footage of Jalade to pass on to an English junior scout for a possible trial with Manchester United.
“For the past seven weeks we have been trying to get the footage from them. When I ask, I am told the TD [Technical Director] has it. I just don’t bother anymore because I don’t know where more to turn to,” lamented the exasperated Ms Parvattan-Trim, a resident of Kwakwani, in the hinterland.
Jalade Trim has been a rising star ever since she burst onto the international stage at the tender age of 12 at the 2017 CONCACAF Girls Under-17 Caribbean Qualifiers at Leonora. She was one of two Guyanese representatives at the Gazprom International Social Children’s Programme, ‘Football for Friendship’, at the Spartak Football Academy, Moscow, Russia in 2018, held during the FIFA World Cup.
The 2017 Junior Female Player of the Year also wore the national colours in 2019 in the Caribbean Football Union Girls Under-14 Challenge Series in Grenada, the Inter-Guiana Games hosted in Suriname and the CONCACAF Girls Under-17 Caribbean Qualifiers. At present, the 16-year-old forward is training with the local Lady Jaguars contingent for the CONCACAF Girls Under-17 Championship scheduled for Florida, USA, later this month.
Given this young player’s skill, there has been an overwhelmingly negative reaction on social media to the GFF’s sloth-like response to the request for the footage. It has now shockingly revealed, “… the GFF has no remit or current capacity to collect and catalogue individual player footage, no broadcast rights for tournaments organised by CONCACAF, nor any capacity or media rights to build a library of such material.” In this day and age, with such immense input and assistance from FIFA, which national football organisation has “no remit” to build a video library of the players in action? Furthermore, if the answer was really that simple, why did the GFF not say this to Ms Parvattan-Trim from day one? Why was this response not immediately relayed to Mr Saul? In addition, how then does the GFF monitor or assist young players with their development?
In its statement, the GFF accused Mr Saul of exploiting, “the good faith of a 16-year-old player and her mother” to publish an unsubstantiated story. It claimed that Mr Saul contacted them under the pretext of writing a general profile on Jalade Trim and not to “discuss any issue with the Guyana Football Federation”. Any journalist would be hard pressed to write a feature on Jalade Trim, who is a footballer, and not mention the GFF. It is also impossible to imagine the issue of the non-forthcoming video footage not weighing heavily on both mother and daughter despite the GFF referring to it as a “non-urgent story”. The GFF’s concern seems to be more about the fact that the story, as it claimed, has been “shared widely on social media, which has unfairly blemished the reputation of the GFF and encouraged members of the public to express strong negative sentiments towards the current administration.”
Last week’s letter to the GPA continued in the same vein, accusing this newspaper and its football reporter of biased and unsubstantiated reporting, which it claimed has “… inflicted damage on our reputation and brand…” Is this the same image-conscious GFF which has just set an international record by reappointing the same National Men’s Coach, Trinidadian Jamal Shabazz, for the fourth time?
Meanwhile, aside from the sports reports filed by our reporters in the recent past, the GFF’s bumbling and fumbling of several important and sensitive issues have been highlighted in this column. These editorials have pointed out the lack of long-term planning, brought to the fore the sexual harassment of female referees by match officials and administrators, the lack of development of the local game despite the infusion of massive sums from FIFA and the CFU, and the disparity of compensation between the Men’s National team and the Lady Jaguars, to mention a few subjects.
The GFF, having spent significant time compiling two useless meandering pieces to excuse its lack of action on a matter of the utmost importance to women, rural Guyanese and national pride, has resorted to a poor attempt to shoot the messenger rather than take cognisance of the message, which is that its lackadaisical approach is painfully obvious. Manchester United, one of the largest and best known sporting organizations in the world, has come calling in Guyana.
Its youth development programme, which can trace its origins back to the 1930s, is statistically the most successful in England, and is built upon the prowess of its scouts who signed the likes of Bobby Charlton, George Best and David Beckham at tender ages. When Manchester United comes calling, it’s all hands on deck. However, much to our national embarrassment, it has encountered an inept GFF.
SN stands by the report, which was written by the leading local football reporter. Rather than crying to the authorities about unfair treatment, the GFF should be correcting its organizational standards. Should higher authorities actually get involved here (as they might have to) it will be because the GFF, not this newspaper, invited that political intervention.
This is a common problem here in Guyana, where elected heads of national sporting bodies assume that they are the ultimate authority in the land and hence no one locally should criticize their dysfunctional modus operandi. These fiefdom chiefs fail to comprehend that they are there first and foremost to serve the good of the sport and that the national interest supersedes their personal ambitions, whims, fantasies, and desires, and not the other way around.
So far, Jalade Trim has compiled an impressive resume in her young career. One would have thought that the GFF would have been eager to hitch its wagon to her potential ascent on the international circuit, and pulled out all the stops to satisfy the scouts. Unfortunately instead, the GFF, in the words of the late national poet laureate, Martin Carter, “with their sugar cake and donkey cart mentality” have chosen to stifle it.
The question remains whether the GFF will assist Jalade Trim by securing the video footage from its international colleagues or continue to seek refuge behind a wall of rhetoric. If it opts for the latter, it will be a sad day for women, our rural communities and our national pride.
