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Positives outweigh negatives, but….
A section of the large crowd that witnessed a game in this year’s competition in Lethem.
By Rawle Welch
This Sunday will mark the completion of another year of the Digicel Nationwide Schools Football Competition and while the Organisers and the Committee responsible for the planning and logistical execution of the event will no doubt be eagerly anticipating its conclusion, fans are the ones who would be missing the action.
Fairly considered to be amongst the biggest junior sporting spectacle, perhaps pipped out for the top spot only by the National Schools Athletics Championships, the event which is played for just under two months, showcases the cream of the country’s best junior footballers who come from far and wide, participating in their regional circuits, before progressing to the national playoffs in a battle for overall supremacy.
This enormous sporting spectacle allows players, spectators, families, media and members of the Organising Committee the opportunity to traverse the country offering them a rare opportunity to witness the custom, way of life, geography of this beautiful country and its people comprised of six different races.
This feature is perhaps the one aspect of the tournament that has no equal and while the whole aim of the event is to help discover and later develop new talent, the above mentioned benefits cannot be underestimated, especially when there is ample evidence of a lack of understanding of each other’s custom, culture and geography.
It simply means that Digicel, the company that conceptualised the tournament, has been sticking to its social responsibility.
While the cost of staging this huge undertaking must be staggering, the Company has stood firm in its commitment for the past five years and the early forecast is suggesting that the tournament is a success.
The rivalry between the teams has intensified, while the all-round standard has improved and these two features must encourage Digicel to do it all over again come next year.
No doubt in the tournament’s review, areas of weakness will surface and solutions arrived at, but all the stops should be pulled out to ensure that the tournament remains alive for the benefit of the youths of this country.
The positives clearly outweigh the negatives and every effort should be made to sanitise the areas that reek of unpleasantness.
A few schools chose to take the route of dishonesty, a situation that threatened to create confusion, but because of the astute work of members of the Organising Committee, those acts were detected and the perpetrators justifiably penalised.
This is a competition that cost millions of dollars to run and participation free and there must be a more severe penalty for schools that deliberately chose to flout the laws that govern the tournament.
After five years, Head teachers and personnel tasked with the responsibility of submitting names of eligible players must understand the harm that they are causing by displaying intent to cheat.
Despite the assurances, the tournament continues to suffer from the absence of tangible support from the Guyana Football Federation (GFF).
Except for a few matches, it has been reported by most members of the media that the rich talent that reside within the competition has often times gone unnoticed.
This development contradicts the real purpose of staging the tournament.
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