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Fernandes believes the proposed two-tier system is good
Philip Fernandes
– Artificial turf still main issue
By Rawle Welch
Kaieteur Sport recently posed a few questions to President of the Guyana Hockey Board Philip Fernandes on the new proposal made recently by the Regional Body to implement a two-tier system where teams will be given the opportunity to play in international competitions courtesy of the Pan Am Challenge Tournament.
Here are some of his responses.
(1)- What is your view of the new proposal?
I think the proposal is a very good one. This is not unusual as it is already done in some other sports and can be seen in the case of football, where there is a UEFA Champions League for top European football clubs and a UEFA Cup for the second tier. When the gap in playing numbers is so great then it becomes futile for the smaller nations to still try to compete in the top international competitions.
(2)- Do you see it an incentive for Guyana to be able to compete at the highest level?
There is no shortage of talent here in Guyana. In my opinion, what limits our international success in many of our sporting disciplines is a lack of facilities, inadequate funding to expose our athletes to better levels of competition and to a lesser extent the combination of migration and extra lessons which severely limits our base of players. As long as there is no solution for these limitations then it may be foolhardy to spend money trying to compete with nations who have everything at their fingertips. Athletes can always benefit from being exposed to competition at the highest level but not when the price is too high and I think that is the case with hockey in Guyana.
(3)- The two-tier system caters for teams such as Guyana and Jamaica to be engaged in the Pan Am Challenge Tournament where the top two move on to compete in the Pan Am Cup which was not possible before due to the qualification system. Do you support the proposal?
I definitely support the proposal as there needs to be more competition among the nations in the region. At the moment, only the top-ranked countries are invited to the regional tournaments and countries like Guyana who do not have the funding to compete regularly on the international stage will always suffer. We were almost excluded from the CAC Games this year because our ladies had not competed in enough tournaments. All other hockey-playing nations in the region benefit from being able to host competitions from time-to-time. They gain valuable ranking points just for having participated. Without an artificial pitch, Guyana does not enjoy that luxury. It therefore costs us more money to be ranked than the other nations and so we need to be careful how we spend what little we have. Having the opportunity to attend more tournaments with achievable goals is now made possible by the two-tiered system.
(4) Could that provide the impetus that the game needs to take off now more than before?
These changes provide us with achievable goals by removing the nations that are out of our reach. It is much like Guyana playing a regional football competition rather than having to shell out big dollars to go straight into competition against Argentina and Brazil. This can definitely be one of the catalysts to spark the game into a new level altogether, but it is not the only requirement. Very little can be achieved and sustained without a locally based artificial pitch.
(5)- Will Guyana be aiming to qualify for the 2013 Pan Am Cup?
We will always be aiming to improve our position in the international arena. Right now our major outdoor hockey focus is the drive to get our women to compete in the CAC Games and bring a good result. This will hopefully draw some recognition from the regional and world body and hopefully gain for us some support toward the acquisition of our own artificial pitch. Without that, whatever gains we make, cannot be sustained. So while we do aim to try to qualify, it does not hold as much of our attention as the artificial pitch issue.
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