GFA suspicious of GDF’s sudden withdrawal from Banks Beer KO Cup

Dec 20, 2011 Sports

By Rawle Welch
The sudden withdrawal of the Guyana Defence Force from the Guyana Football Association (GFA) / Banks Beer Knockout Cup is being viewed with suspicion by the executive that runs football in Georgetown.
This is according to a source close to the current executive, who spoke with Kaieteur Sport yesterday, but preferred to remain anonymous.
The GFA member in his comments said that even after several meetings with the Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony and the Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon, they failed to ascertain the reason for the Army’s abrupt extraction from the Banks Beer sponsored Knockout Cup which carries a first prize of $3million.
In a correspondence dated December 16, 2011 that was signed by Lieutenant Colonel Nazrul Hussain and addressed to Lieutenant Commander Vernon Burnette, who is the current President of the GFA, it stated that the Guyana Defence Force will not be participating in the above mentioned competition.
The letter also added that all correspondence from the GFA in relation to the GDF FC must be addressed to the Chief of Staff.
At no time did the letter offer any reason for the Army’s withdrawal and with no national activity ongoing presently to support the team members requirement to be in-line or any other call of duty that could be deemed urgent, many members of the GFA executive are shocked by the Army’s High Command stance to pull the team out of the lucrative year end tournament after intense preparations.
Many in the football fraternity were of the view that the recent development was unfortunate, adding that the team’s concentrated preparations had given them a good chance of winning the tournament.
According to the source, the meetings with Minister Dr. Anthony and Dr. Luncheon, though enlightening, and could have been interpreted as representing a particular interest, failed to achieve any positive outcome, pointing out that even after extensive deliberations between the parties no reason for the team’s immediate subtraction from the tournament was given despite promises being made to ascertain such.
“Dr. Luncheon met with us on Sunday morning and we spoke on many matters including the withdrawal of the Army’s team and he promised to contact the relevant authority and would then contact us at 16:00 hrs the said day, but until now we haven’t heard from him,” the source said.
The GFA in a subsequent letter to the Secretary of the GDF FC dated December 19 informed that the executive committee has decided to suspend the team from all football related activities until a hearing and determination of the following matters:
(1)- The withdrawal of the GDF FC from the 2011 Banks Beer KO Cup and (2) – the current administrative status of the GDF FC.
It also stated that the date and venue for the meeting will be communicated to the GDF FC at the earliest possible date.
It must be noted also that the GDF is currently participating in the President’s Beer Super League sponsored by Banks DIH and lies second in the points standing.

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GFA suspicious of GDF’s sudden withdrawal from Banks Beer KO Cup

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