Georgetown Football Association (GFA) executive committee member Lomell Johnson has lambasted the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) for their lack of financial support towards conducting the ongoing Senior Men’s League and National Milling Company (NAMILCO) U-17 League.
This was disclosed during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport. Lomell declared, “First of all let me make one thing clear. I have no friends when it comes to football. So when I make these comments it is with all honesty and no fear of losing a friend. I am totally dissatisfied with the financial support the two leagues have gotten thus far. The GFF has given us a meagre $480,000 to start the senior league, which they said is “start-up money.” We have since exhausted this money along with the little gate receipts that we’ve earned and to date we can’t get another amount from the federation even though we’ve provided evidence of the expenditures.”
According to Johnson, who is also a member of the Black Pearl Football Club, “As it relates to the U-17 [League], based on my knowledge, not a cent was given to the GFA to run this tournament. And the lack of financial support for that tournament is putting a serious strain on the senior league. Because whatever little we earn from the senior league has to be used on the U-17. I’ve even asked the executives to suspend that league until we have the financial capacity or capability to handle both leagues.”
“I know people may ask what they [GFA executive] are doing about the situation. But the reality is that some of our executives have become like puppets to the GFF. If the GFF says jump they ask how high. I told them not to start the U-17 knowing the financial situation, but because the federation asked for it to start these people went ahead.”
The GFA League started on May 15, while the NAMILCO U-17 competition commenced in the first week of September. NAMILCO renewed its sponsorship agreement with the GFF to restart the Thunderbolt Flour Power U-17 League in May. However, the financial numbers with regards to the sponsorship package was not disclosed by the federation or the corporate entity.
Similarly, the GFF did not divulge the sponsorship package for the Blue Waters U-15 Girls Developmental League. However, the federation did reveal the figure of $10.6 million that was donated by Tiger Rentals Guyana towards the staging of its U-13 Boys tournament, which is yet to commence.
Questioned on the status of officiating during both tournaments, as episodes of civilians being coerced into serving as referees have transpired, Johnson stated, “For both leagues there has been a serious issue with referees. We have issues with referees turning up late, only one or two turning up and in some cases none turning up, even though as the association we would give adequate notice to the relevant persons.”
He further stated, “In order not to cancel games we were forced to use others to officiate. And believe me, after hearing from the mouths of some of the referees I understand why there is no real drive to officiate at any games. Referees complained of not being paid since the tournament started. These are people with families. What the federation needs to understand is that there’s a difference between volunteering and being hired. These aren’t volunteers so they need to be paid. Sometimes when I’m at the venues and players and other fans are abusing them verbally it troubles me because I understand what they’re facing.”
Asked if the issues of referee shortage at matches have been ventilated to the GFF and the Referees Council, and if the duo have enacted any plans to curb the problems, Johnson disclosed, “I can’t say anything about any plans they have. We continue to voice our concerns with the hope of seeing urgent improvements.”
He further said, “A lot of players were complaining about playing at the NTC [National Training Centre, Providence], especially in the hot sun. And I understand their complaints because I played there and it’s really difficult. We were forced to return to GFC ground. But before GFC released their ground they needed the old bill cleared for games played there from the league.”
Johnson expounded, “Let me explain the agreement the GFA has with the GFF. It is understood that the GFF is totally responsible for paying for grounds and referees. The GFA is responsible for raising the prize money. We sent the GFC’s invoice to the Federation and even though they wrote GFC committing to pay the bill, GFC refused to give us the ground and asked that the GFA pay that bill before we were able to play Friday and Sunday last. It tells me GFC is questioning the credibility of the federation.”
According to Johnson, the lack of finances has also severely impacted the ability of the association to provide security at the matches for spectators and officials, which is a criteria of the GFF to stage tournaments both at the association and private level.
He explained, “There was an incident at a game and a referee was asking about security. But the reality is that with no finances we can’t put these kinds of things in place. This occurred at the GFC ground Friday evening, the player confronted the referee after the game ended but we had no security in place to deal with that issue because of a lack of finance. The executives had to intervene to pacify the situation.”
