Letter to the Sports Editor GFF congress will be an interesting one

Apr 23, 2014 Sports

---

Dear Sports Editor,
I read with ‘great’ amusement an article in your dailies on the 20th of April 2014, titled ‘Time for the GFF General Council to awake and do what’s right’.
First, I would like to commend Kaieteur and its editor for never being discriminatory with the selection of letters to be in its print. This provides the opportunity for some writers to hide behind the cloth of anonymity so that the identity of their senseless, ill informed and misguided expressions would remain in the shadows of the unknown.
The author of this missive is most certainly confused and it is without any doubt he/she is from the school of the previous regime, a grouping of people who without any inclination of remorse ‘raped’ the Guyana Football Federation for more than two decades of development. A body of executives whose self serving interests, stifled and robbed countless youths with immense talent and potential, the opportunity to proceed and advance to higher heights in the game they loved.
The author, Mr Editor, has the audacity to make a comparison of this new body of less than two years of service, to those of the past twenty years. What a shame! This individual is smart in his/her disguise as a ‘concerned football fan’.
But it should be stated that no real fan of Guyana’s football would have ventured to make such a comparison. How could someone in their right sense make such a moronic, unworthy and downright unfair comparison?
In over twenty years, the formation of clubs/teams across the country only amassed a count of 108, after all that time? What a waste of precious years! Of those clubs/teams less the 15 could have satisfied the 12 basic constitutional requirements, is that development? In all of Guyana’s clubs/teams for the past 20 years only 3 B license coaches. In over two decades and all of the finances from FIFA, what tangible asset does the GFF poses? The headquarters is nothing but a transformed two bedroom house. Which of the associations can boast of having a well furnished office with a computer having internet access, a working telephone, printer and all other equipment to aid in the day to day management of the affairs of their respective associations? Which association can say that the GFF for the past 20 years has given, not loan them, balls, uniforms, books to educate their players, and or financial assistance to aid in the preparation of a league irrespective of junior or senior football?
Where is the World Cup money of 2010 that is still unaccounted for, is this transparency and accountability? In 2012 more than $300,000,000 dollars were spent by the GFF; yes three hundred million dollars and the year’s prior expresses astronomical amounts of monies as well. The question to be asked is who actually benefited from all that money? What visible development can be attributed to all those monies spent in 2012 by the GFF under the then acting President who incidentally is the author of the very motion of no-confidence laid against the Matthias Presidency. Is this wisdom according to this ghost writer, and should such a motion still be given commendation of the highest regard?
Mr. Editor, it is important to understand, especially the author of that letter, that the General Council was dead for a number of years, but was awakened by the testicular fortitude of the Matthias led team that challenged the status quo of the Klass regime. It was his resilience to fight against a visionless dictatorship that saw the intervention and coming of FIFA to our shores, that brought an end to the GFA and GFF debacle and subsequently brought about a democratic election after 20 years.
What is also important to note Mr. Editor, is that Mr. Matthias Presidency resulted in him having an executive made up of a presidential candidate (Ivan Persaud), Mr. Adams and Ms. Dickenson who were apart of the slate for another presidential candidate of the old regime, Mr. Ojeer of the other third presidential candidate, Mr. Hercules, who too was desirous of becoming the president and a general and deputy general secretary of the old administration.
So it is very much impossible for one not to see the potential conundrum it would have created to function effectively as a unit. For all those individuals had their own egos and personal aspirations and an anger grouping of people working relentlessly behind the scene to create confusion and frustrate the office of the president.
This is what the man had to work with, coupled with over thirty million dollars in debt.
Some in the football fraternity are oblivious to the realities that exist, the behind the scene workings of individuals who were there before, trying to muster their way back in for their own selfish interest and not for Guyana’s football development.
With the upcoming congress on the 26th April 2014 as rightly stated by this ghost writer, who I’m certain is a camouflage working mole of the previous regime, will certainly be an interesting one. The writer’s compiled information garnered from the dailies and certainly from speculations and hearsay makes his/her expressions certainly not absolutely accurate and correct.
It was not the Matthias led regime who suspended the UDFA, it was the very awakened General Council of the GFF. I am very much confident that the GFF General Council will be more awakened with the revelations of the financial audit and they will once again do what is right for Guyana’s football.
Yours respectfully
Jermaine Figueira.

---

---