One of the enduring problems one encounters in the daily exercise of surviving in our society is figuring out the ever fluctuating blurred lines. There is a constant shifting of goalposts that facilitates all manner of rule bending and other shenanigans. It often appears that boundaries are not observed by those in authority nor does conflict of interest apply to those holding the reins of power.
A prime example of this kind of scenario is the organising and managing of football tournaments by the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and private entities. One of the latter groups is the well-known partnership of Kashif and Shanghai. Muhammad Kashif and Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major have been arranging football tournaments continuously for the past 25-odd years (with a break, of course, for the Covid-19 pandemic), with their Christmas /New Year extravaganza attracting large crowds, especially overseas-based Guyanese football fans, who have returned home for the holiday season.
Last week Wednesday, 6th November, the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation (K&S) launched its next event, the National Futsal Championship. The tournament, which commences on 20th November and concludes on 1st January, 2025, will feature 64 teams competing in an elimination format. There are to be 32 teams from Georgetown, with the rest from Linden, East Coast Demerara, Berbice, East Bank Demerara, Lethem, West Demerara, Essequibo, Region One, Region Seven, and Region Nine. Apart from the opening night, the tournament will be staged primarily at the National Gymnasium on Mandela Avenue on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with the semifinals and final slated for the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Homestretch Avenue.
Here is where the wires and the lines all crossed, and unravelling them becomes an exercise in futility. Inexplicably, the K&S Organisation was allowed to utilise the boardroom of the Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport on Main Street for the launch of this affair. How does a private entity have access to the boardroom of a government ministry to launch a tournament? It is worth noting at this point in time that there has been no announcement of this event either being sponsored by, or managed in conjunction with the ministry. Furthermore, Mr Muhammad wears the hat of Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC). Having accepted that position, he should be aware that he can no longer be actively involved as the co-director of the K&S entity, as this represents a gross conflict of interest.
It gets better. At the launch, responding to whether the K&S partnership had sought permission from the GFF to host the event, Mr Muhammad answered, “No, we didn’t ask for permission because the reason being these teams are not affiliated to the GFF, so we can’t ask the GFF for their permission…
“I don’t think the GFF has a Futsal section where these teams are registered to be a part of that. We are asking the GFF officially for their referees to be part of this tournament. The tournament has to be guided by the official rules, and it’s a FIFA programme so we need that guidance.”
Mr Muhammad was once a member of a GFF initiative, inclusive of private promoters, which had attempted to incorporate and regulate these very teams. Are we to now assume that no affiliation was ever completed? Mr Muhammad has acknowledged that Futsal falls under the jurisdiction of FIFA. Hence, by extension it would fall under the aegis of the GFF, a FIFA affiliate. So why wasn’t permission sought from the GFF? Or is it that the rules don’t apply to the K&S Organisation? Given that no permission has been sought, or apparently is not required, how can the tournament be labelled the National Futsal Championship?
In 2022, the GFF declared that Sports Management Inc (SMI), an entity which organises grassroots football tournaments, was persona non grata, for arranging an ‘unsanctioned’ event, the Magnum ‘Unfinished Business’ Street Futsal Tournament at the National Park, on Saturday, 18th June. This announcement came on the heels of the suspension of 13 players and one official on 19th June for participating in the said affair. The participating teams in this ‘unsanctioned’ tournament were community/street teams, not clubs or associations affiliated to the GFF. In an exclusive interview with this publication SMI principal Edison Jefford declared that he had not received any formal notice of his entity’s suspension, but had been made aware of it via his friends in the football fraternity. The GFF stated that he had not submitted all the requisite documentation – clearances from the Guyana Fire Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the police permit for staging the event. Mr Jefford had responded that nothing could be further from the truth. Following due process, he said, he had collected all the paperwork and had duly submitted it to the GFF, which never replied. Likewise, he never received any notification that the event was unsanctioned, but was aware the GFF had actually made an attempt to inform other parties that another organisation was hosting the tournament.
Meanwhile, when questioned last week about the conflict of interest with regard to his portfolio as NSC Chairman, Mr Muhammad replied, “We want to provide nice entertainment for Guyana. I am capable of doing that, my team is capable of doing that, and we were asked to do it, and we will definitely do it because we think people respect our capabilities… This is not anything where I will be asking the NSC for monies for this or anything like that. NSC will not be a part of this, but we just want to ensure that we provide real quality entertainment for Guyana. We want to give the opportunity for young footballers to play at something very well organised, and these guys must showcase themselves …”. The NSC Chairman also revealed that permission for the use of the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall for the semifinals and final had been granted by Minister of Culture, Youth, and Sport Charles Ramson Jr.
The remaining million-dollar question, of course, is who asked the K&S Organisation to arrange this tournament? Who is it that can bypass the protocol of seeking permission from the GFF to host an event under their jurisdiction? Who can label this tournament a national championship and give the blessing to a private entity to handle all the arrangements? The closer one looks the more the lines blur.