Digicel laid the foundation, but no one is building

Sep 04, 2014 Sports

Gregory Deen

By Edison Jefford

Digicel Guyana Inc. has laid a formidable foundation with its annual nationwide schools football championships, investing millions of dollars in administrative and practical efficacy to venture in otherwise unchartered territory for local sport holistically.
The Digicel Schools Football Championships is a perfect example of how broad-based vision for the development of local sport should be implemented. With millions spent on a programme that engages schools and players across these 83,000 square miles, Guyana Football Federation (GFF) could not have asked for a better pilot-project to develop football.
The competition concluded its fourth year last month and one would think that following such an extensive programme, with Digicel having done its part to fund, administrate, market and deliver the final product, a transition development plan would emerge.
But for four years there has not been a deliberate effort from the body that governs all football in Guyana, to use the Digicel Schools Football Championships as a yardstick for an extensive youth development programme that isolates talent nationally.
In essence, the GFF is allowing a priceless gift to garner so much dust that it is barely noticeable. Digicel is no doubt

Christopher Mathias

making an indelible mark with the football programme, but the transition from school to a national programme is undermining that effort.
The GFF may be handicapped from its current imbroglio and thus hamstrung in financing and/or sourcing funding for such youth programmes. However, there cannot be enough emphasis on the importance of a structured nursery that is fully complimented.
There should have been Coaches within the employ of the federation seeking out the best talents from across Guyana during the competition to eventually bring together for consistent instruction in the game. The federation may have missed this opportunity.
The fact that such an extensive progamme is proliferated without post-competition development plans is cause for concern. It means that the best football talents within the schools system across Guyana are generally forgotten after the Digicel tournament, when the event could be used as the main springboard for future advancement of the sport.
The tenets of a Transition Development Plan could be easily worked out with the right expertise, but its absence for four years is watering down an otherwise excellent programme and eventually will discourage a corporate giant from what is a lucrative investment.