Letter to the Sports Editor…An open letter to GFF President, Mr Christopher Matthias

Sep 18, 2014 Sports

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Dear Sir,
Can you in your quiet moments recollect what have you achieved as a President of the GFF in the period you have been in Office? Tell the nation what was your success and if there was or is any improvement in the Administration of the GFF?
Mr President, in my opinion your tenure was a disaster; you have destroyed football in Guyana in just under 2 years. The Empire is crumbling around you and yet you walk about proudly boasting about the changes that are evident in Guyana’s Football Administration and telling untruths which will leave the faint of hearts shuddering.
Sir, I will highlight some of the atrocities that you perpetuated during your short and stormy stay in office to date.
·    You lied to the nation when you withdrew the Beach Soccer Team from the CONCACAF tournament saying that FIFA & or CONCACAF advised you that withdrawal will not be a problem. However FIFA fined us in excess of $20,000US Dollars and when you received the letter you kept the contents to yourself not informing the Secretariat or Executives. But as the old saying goes one day all the truth will be revealed and that was eventually done.
·    Sir, you came into a cash strapped organization with debts amounting to in excess of $30 Million Guy Dollars. Yet you continue to add on to the indebtedness. The bus services are hooting for their money, the hotel owners are in rage for their funds, the referees are owed their fees for games that were played, the various grounds are in need of their cash and the list goes on. These service providers say you have promised them payment within one week of you doing business with them, telling them that Banks DIH has money for the GFF and you are getting it next week. Mr President why do you continue to lie so blatantly?
·    Mr President can you explain to the nation how you can raise the stipends for your executives by 300% with all of them getting in excess of $140,000 each per month for a 2 day per week or no time per week visit to the office and you have dedicated and hardworking staff getting less than $100,000 per month? Is that how a caring President and Executives treat the staff they CLAIM to love, a staff who they claim are the backbone to the Secretariat and without them the work cannot be done. Staff who work all hours, late into the night, almost every weekend.
·    Another of your mismanagement is the non-payment of staff since July, how in heaven’s name do you expect these poor workers to live their life, sir, these people have rent, light bill, telephone bills, courts, water rate and other pertinent expenses to have a happy life. Do you know when Mr Klass was President for all that was said about him, he would never ever let his staff suffer so much, he had a heart, I wonder if you have.
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Why are you the recipient of so many resignations from Executives and Staff and also other separations for various reasons? Something has to be radically wrong. A Vice President resigned due to your style of Management which is not in keeping with the proper management, the Office Manager parted way with the company, the General Secretary resigned, the long serving accountant resigned, another Vice President has decided not be a part of your regime, you initiated a suspension of another Vice President, one of your Committee Members has ceased to contribute to your tardiness as a leader. Quite recently a male staff resigned due to various reasons inclusive of non-payment of salary, one of your most trusted and hardworking staff that was deemed as your right hand departed from being a part of your crumbling empire. She departed because she owes rent and was on the verge of being thrown out on to the street; she has not been paid since June. Another female staff recently resigned because of financial issues which seem not to be ending soon. All of these persons were your tried and proven staff, yet they are leaving the organisation. Something is radically wrong. Wake up sir.
·    The GFF may be the only Federation in FIFA that has a non-functioning executive with serious constitutional breaches being perpetrated by you sir. Are FIFA and CONCACAF aware of such infractions of the constitution, have you been informing them? I know you usually do.
·    The business of the GFF is to organise and generally play football. The flag ship team of any sensible Federation is the Senior National Team. The Country football standard is judged by the performance of its Senior National Team at Regional & International Competitions. All of the top countries in the world engage their best players regardless of where they play or live once they are qualified to play for the respective country. Football is serious business and you can only get support from the business community if your National Teams do well at Competitions and that is a reality of the facts. A country cannot sit and wait for FIFA funds to run football, a proper and constructive organisation will ensure that proper programmes be prepared and implemented with successes so that businesses could come on board.
·    You speak of football development, did your organisation conduct coaching courses, referee courses, administrative courses and you speak of developing football.
It is my humble view and also many other people’s that you are the worst football President in this hemisphere; you have literally killed football in Guyana. You can check the social media and see all the negative comments that are being made about football in Guyana. Visit the market, the supermarket, the many sports bars, the various functions, the same is being said. The Government officials, the legal fraternity, the business community, the sporting fraternity, all have negative comments about your leadership style and are eagerly awaiting to see your back. That will be a glorious day and football will be the winner.
Thank you.
Raul Thorne.

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