The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) yesterday successfully hosted its Extraordinary Congress at the National Training Centre, Providence, East Bank Demerara, where amendments to the constitution were ratified, following a statutes revision process.
The statutes revision process was supervised by FIFA and CONCACAF. GFF President, Wayne Forde during the post-congress press conference said, “I think one of the points that I really should emphasise is that throughout this entire process, we had the full support, guidance and oversight of FIFA and CONCACAF. There is no stage in this revision process that the GFF acted outside of the oversight or involvement of FIFA and CONCACAF, to the extent that the final draft of the statutes that was sent to the members, were also sent to FIFA and CONCACAF for the legal team to examine.”
He added, “To examine it and to ensure that even the suggestions and the amendments that came from membership during the consultation did not stray from the alignment that FIFA and CONCACAF sought to achieve in the revision of the statutes.”
Thirteen members supposedly voted in favour of the changes in the statutes, while one abstained and another voted against. The major alteration to the constitution is the implementation of a 3rd term statute, which paves the way for Forde to run again in 2023.
According to Forde, “The statute revision process is one that is essential to establishing a firm and sturdy platform for Guyana’s football. We believe that the football machinery across the globe is being modernised and it’s important that our statutes gives us the opportunity to modernise our football and to grow at the pace that the other parts of the world are, in fact, growing.”
Meanwhile, One CONCACAF’s Howard McIntosh’s remarked, “There are some members of your fraternity that speak to the fact that the statutes are being done for some other reason, than the reason that it is being done for. This is not an exercise unique to Guyana, at all.”
He further said, “To the contrary, all 211 countries within FIFA and 41 countries in CONCACAF have to do this alignment. It’s really an alignment with international best practices that allow for good governance. It’s really very simple and very straightforward.”
