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GOAL Project approved – Klass
– two players to attend Digicel Kick Start clinic in Suriname
Colin Klass and CFU Boss Harold Taylor at a previous briefing.
By Rawle Welch
President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Colin Klass in an interview with Kaieteur Sport yesterday revealed that the world governing body for football FIFA has finally approved Guyana’s request for the long-awaited GOAL Project.
According to Klass, Guyana was granted approval early this week and now has the directive to tender for contractual work to begin, at Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo.
The GFF Boss said that very shortly CONCACAF Caribbean Zone Development Officer Harold Taylor will visit Guyana to open the tender process and to publicly announce the successful bidder.
The GOAL Project is expected to contain dormitories, training facility, a ground, fencing and kitchen facility in the initial phase and will be constructed in a manner that will accommodate future developments such as floodlights etc.
In other related matters, Klass in response to the noticeable absence of Guyanese players from the Digicel Kick Start Clinic which opened in Kingston, Jamaica informed this newspaper that the sponsor made a decision to rotate the countries participating in this year’s clinic except for Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Suriname.
He, however, did commend them for compensating Guyana by allowing spots for two players to travel to Suriname to attend the clinic.
“I’m extremely grateful to Digicel for allowing us the opportunity to benefit from the programme because I believe we still have a lot of talent in Guyana that needs to be showcased,” Klass intimated.
The two players identified are Charles Critchlow and Jermaine Batson and according to the GFF Head, they’ve already met with the players’ parents to seek their approval and to update them on how the clinic will work.
He stated that the parents were very supportive; adding that both players have played at the national level previously (Under-15) and much is expected of them. “I believe they possess the talent to go there and reproduce an Andrew Murray jnr. (referring to the first Guyanese player to benefit from the clinic and who had the opportunity to train at Sunderland) or even better his performance.
At the end of the regional search for talent, 12 players will be given stints at English Premier League clubs Liverpool and Sunderland in October.
Eight Caribbean players will travel to Sunderland, while four from Central America will make the trip to European giant Liverpool, also the former club of Barnes.
The Digicel Kick Start Clinic will next travel to the Caribbean territories of Barbados (May 8-12); Suriname (May 13-17); while in June it will visit Haiti (June 7-11), Trinidad (June 11-15) and St Kitts (June 15-21).
National League – Klass said that the budget was expected to be sent off yesterday to ‘Win in CONCACAF with CONCACAF’ Programme Director Keith Look Loy for his perusal and endorsement.
Training and workshops are also scheduled to commence in July with the first phase of the competition expected to start at the month’s end.
Those anticipated to benefit from the training are match commissioners, referees, referees assessors and coaches, while a marketing seminar will be conducted to build the capacity within the clubs – all aimed at making the venture a true success.
Klass further stated that the associations will be tasked with the responsibility of choosing the clubs, but will have to provide supporting evidence of the respective choices.
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