Journalist Andrew Carmichael feels Kashif and Shanghai insults Region Six

Nov 07, 2013 Sports

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The recent announcement by the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation (K&SO) that it has switched to Secondary Schools with the aim of “developing the younger Golden Jaguars,” should be applauded but their first step they have made in reaching that GOAL is an insult to the people of Region Six, an insult to academics and an insult to the Ministry of Education and all who are part of the system, Carmichael wrote.

On Thursday November 31st co-directors of K&SO, Kashif Muhammad and Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major met at the Pegasus Hotel and told reporters of plans for the upcoming tournament which they said will for the first year, be for school children and not senior footballers.
That sounded good. Mr. Muhammad told the media that the top eight teams from the second annual Digicel Schools football championships will gain direct entry into the twenty-four team competition. That in my mind did well for continuity for the development of football from the school level. Then Mr. Muhammad insults us all and named the twenty-four teams.
There are four from the town of Linden, eight from Georgetown, four from West Demerara, four from East Coast Demerara, two from East Bank Demerara, one from Region Seven and ONE from ‘the County’ of Berbice.
“The School that was named is from Region Five which is indeed part of the county of Berbice but no school from Region Sis was named. Isn’t that an insult to the people of Region six, a Region that has three towns and was part of the Digicel tournament?” asked Carmichael.
“In the past residents of Region Six gave great support to the K&S tournament when in came to the Blairmont Community Centre on Christmas Day. Hundreds of them will leave the Corentyne and other parts of the region and cross with the ferry to get to the ground, sometimes leaving home as early as 12:30hrs to go about four miles from home to give support to the tournament despite whether a team from Berbice was going to be in action or not.  Getting home meant walking a mile and a half to get to the Rosignol Ferry Stelling and waiting until the last boat at 22:30hrs or later before fans got back to New Amsterdam, which was usually almost midnight on Christmas Day. Those fans who made those sacrifices are certainly receiving a big thank you from the organizers,” the Berbice Journalist reasoned.
“During Thursday’s press conference Muhammad did say, “The top eight teams from the second annual Digicel Schools football championships will gain direct entry into the twenty-four team competition.” New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI) is one of the schools that played one of the four semi-final matches in the “The second annual Digicel Schools football championships.” NATI is not mentioned in the list of names Shanghai presented to the media. Isn’t that an insult to academics? I will not want to say that an upright man like Mr. Muhammad said something that was other that the truth. It could not be an oversight because all of the teams were named. When students of NATI were confronted with the harsh reality on Friday that they were told something other than the truth, they expressed disappointment. Some of their comments cannot be mentioned.”
“The insult is not just to the students of NATI and those who supported K&S in the past, but to all of the students who took part in the second annual Digicel Schools football championships, it suggest to them that the Region Six Leg of that tournament of which they were a part of was not of a standard worthy of being mentioned,” Carmichael noted.
“Mr. Muhammad also took the opportunity to introduce Olato Sam the country’s Chief Education Officer who he said will be playing a role. One will guess that Olato Sam is playing a key role in ensuring that only one team from the county of Berbice gets a chance in the tournament and more so that the one school chosen is a private school. Yes the press was told that there will be one school from Berbice at it will be Ash Educational Trust. The Chief Education Officer from all that was said at the press conference that he attended and spoke is supporting the move. Isn’t this an insult to the Ministry of Education and by extension an insult to the Government? I will not hasten to say that if it is an insult to the government it is by extension an insult to all the people of Guyana.”
“I wonder whether the sponsors who Muhammad named are aware that many of their supporters in Region Six are being treated like this in something that they are sponsoring.
It is not too late for K&S or the sponsors to make changes. As it Relates to Region Six, inviting only one school from East Berbice, Corentyne to the tournament in my opinion will still be an insult to a Region that has three towns.”

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