Where is the development of football in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports 2025 budgetary allocation?

Dear Editor,

Is there anything in the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport’s budget for football? Careful note is made of the whopping 8 billion dollars allocated to the sports sector in this year’s budget. One cannot help but wonder if any of this unprecedented sum of money has been allocated for football development and football programmes throughout the country.

Historically, football has always been placed on the backburner in terms of priority, when it comes to sports in Guyana. Instead, this responsibility has usually been placed in the hands of the Guyana Football Federation; a Federation which selectively chooses which Regional Mem-ber Associations to support and is always cash strapped. Just ask the Rupununi Football Association, the Association with the most male, female, and junior football teams in the country but did not even get the chance to participate in the recent Elite League Playoffs. Discarded and left to its own devices, Rupununi football clearly exemplifies a wider and more pressing problem.

Football, a hugely popular sport which can contribute so much to building social cohesion, helping to bridge racial divides and keeping youth occupied and away from harmful influences such as drugs and alcohol, is largely neglected and left by the wayside in communities across the length and breadth of Guyana. The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport cannot possibly expect a perennially cash strapped and mismanaged GFF to develop football in Guyana. There has to be more tangible support from the coffers of the government.

Fencing a few playfields here and there is not going to make it! That is not development! Development includes building the institutional and organizational capacities of football clubs and other sports groups across the country to ensure they become self-sufficient and sustainable. Development includes ensuring the most talented footballers in the country are able to attend school and are afforded the opportunity to not only play at a professional level but are able to contribute to the nation’s development by becoming teachers, doctors, pilots etc.

Development means ensuring the vulnerable and poor in society can use the beautiful game as an avenue for upliftment and social mobility in the forms of scholarships and other initiatives. Development is ensuring that a boy or girl from a poor or underdeveloped community can choose football over resorting to a life of crime, violence, drugs and alcohol. Development means breaking the vicious cycle of poverty that so many face despite all the country’s oil wealth. Development means equity of access to opportunities regardless of race, political affiliation, location or social standing. In this regard, the government is falling woefully short.

I would recommend the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports visit all the administrative regions in this country and identify areas where his Ministry can assist to build football in Guyana. Failure to do so is being complicit in failing the youth of this country.

Sincerely

(Name and Address Withheld)