Dear Editor,
During the President’s Cup tournament in 2022, His Excellency President Irfaan Ali is on record as publicly stating that one of his main aims for promoting the President’s Cup football tournament was to have Guyana qualify for the soccer world cup. While sounding far-fetched since our football structure lags far behind international standards, it was at least encouraging to hear our president offer such confident words.
Since the President’s Cup, where mostly senior football players were exposed, there have been two national schools football tournaments where talent in the younger age brackets was on display. What was seen was mostly encouraging and kudos need to be given to the sponsors and the organisers for having such tournaments. It is hoped that there will be many more such tournaments going forward. Of arguably even more importance is that some of the most dominant teams at this level are schools from the hinterland areas (Waramadong Secondary, Winner of the KFC tournament 2022, Annai Secondary – 3rd place at KFC 2022 and winner of the inaugural edition, and now Santa Rosa Secondary who are presently into the Semis of the Milo tournament). Traditionally hinterland locations are often overlooked when players are selected for national representation. This needs to be changed immediately! Especially at the junior levels.
Moving forward, and in line with the President’s bold promise to have Guyana qualify for the World Cup, the ideal place where the government should be targeting their investment should be at the junior age group levels. A comprehensive schools football programme should be developed at all secondary schools in conditions similar to what is experienced internationally. The Ministry of Education Ground which hosts most school-age matches should be immediately upgraded to a turf ground with the associated facilities similar to what is experienced internationally (in December 2022, players from the invitational teams from Trinidad and Suriname were heard lamenting the poor facilities here as compared to their respective countries – further evidence of how far behind we are in terms of facilities).
A critical area of investment has to be in the hinterland. The dominance of teams from these areas was pleasurably surprising. It will be a travesty if these talents continue to only be given token consideration. Maybe His Excellency can start this process by committing immediate development to the schools that have performed so excellently in the past two years.
One thing is obvious in all of this – an improvement in our football structure will cost a lot of money. But certainly our president must have been aware that it is a billion-dollar industry when he made his bold promise. If strategic investments are made in the sport then His Excellency’s promise of WC qualification may not be as far-fetched as it presently sounds. And developing our talent at the grass roots level is a sure way of attaining this dream.
Yours faithfully,
M. Abraham
