GFF updates Media following Ordinary Congress

May 31, 2016 Sports

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To get increased subvention from FIFA

Guyana Football Federation (GFF) president Wayne Forde updated the media on several important matters

pertaining to the running of football in the country after that body would have held an Ordinary Congress on Saturday, 28th May, 2016 at Herdsmanston Lodge, Queenstown.
The press conference was held yesterday in the Boardroom of the GFF Secretariat.
GFF’s Ordinary Congress was described as an “exceptionally good” Congress with its success being credited exclusively to the 22-Member Associations. The conduct of the Congress was very professional; engaging, open and honest communication was had and the Executive Body is very pleased with the outcome of the Congress.
“It important to make mention that I’m convinced at this point that we have a unified football fraternity. In all of my engagements with the media and the public in general over the past six months, I have maintained one common theme and that is, the football fraternity appears to want to demonstrate that to Guyana, to the business community and wider society that we have had enough of the turmoil, we have had enough of in-fighting and we’re prepared to go in a different direction. I’m very optimistic of the future,” Forde said.
Key Decisions Taken at the event include: Amendment of the Electoral Code to allow a member of the Executive Committee to be replaced, in the event of a withdrawal (providing it’s not more than 50%), without an election. This amendment will require the Executive Committee to present the position/person to the Congress for ratification.
Amendment to the Executive Committee’s Expense and compensation provision; This amendment will seek greater oversight on any issue relative to expense and compensation that is due to the Executive Committee in the execution of their functions. This will fall under the Audit and Compliance Committee; this committee will set the oversight mechanism for compliance. The limit as submitted by the named committee will be submitted to the Congress for approval. The previous constitution had this issue very vaguely worded and was subject to the possibility of abuse.
Vacant Positions on the Key Judicial Committees were ratified. Proposed members to these independent bodies were recommended to and approved by the Congress – Ethics, Disciplinary and Appeals Committees. These are now all fully-constituted. Approval of the 2016-2017 Budget / Presentation of the New FAP Support show the annual FAP has been increased from $USD250,000 to $USD1.2m with the possibility of earning another $USD250,000. This is part of the promise made by current FIFA President Giovanni Infantino during his election campaign. There will be more oversight and scrutiny to ensure accountability. Capacity building will be afforded to GFF Member Associations to facilitate compliance to the accountability systems to be established.
Review of Contracts of Member Associations: All members engaging the corporate world for sponsorship and other engagements will have to submit draft contracts to the GFF for review prior to final sign-off in order to ensure that the said contracts protect the interests of football and speak to the development agenda of the game. Financial Assistance to members is to be referred to the Finance Committee for review, recommended to the Executive Committee and later to be endorsed by the Congress. The GFF funds electricity and rent to the Member Associations but the Executive Committee feels more can be done in this regard.
Meanwhile, touching on the suspension of striker Gregory Richardson, the GFF President again refuted the news story carried by a News entity as completely inaccurate. “The incident which occurred at Leonora featuring the game (Pele Football Club vs Alpha United) had a measure of threat and violence to the officials of the game. The Executive Committee, when they got the facts and the report from the Match Commissioner, felt that for something that serious, we cannot allow a player to go on and represent the country when there are issues of threat to the safety of an official on the field. The only time that person can go on to participate in any football activity is after they are cleared by the Disciplinary Committee. Mr. Richardson and the other members of his team that were mentioned in the Match Commissioner’s Report have all been referred to the Disciplinary Committee. The only time that they will play any role on the field locally or internationally is after the Disciplinary Committee would have cleared them and discharged their own disciplinary action against them.
So CFU has many weeks ahead of it; if Mr. Richardson is successful in his defence when he goes before the Disciplinary Committee and the National Team Management feels that he should be called up for further engagement, then Mr. Richardson’s right will be protected to represent Guyana on the field of play. So the decisions we take at the Executive Committee are never personal; we have to protect the image of the game and we understand that some of these players have a very strong and passionate following. We have to look at the image of football, both locally and internationally, we simply cannot have a situation where a referee is threatened to the extent that security is needed to take the field to restrain players and, within a matter of days, allow that player to be a part of the national setup. That will be sending the wrong message to other players.
We will not, at any time, tolerate that; to the extent that we can act as an Executive Committee, we will, and what we have done is the limit of our action. We simply say, in our correspondence to the players and the club, that until they go before a Disciplinary Committee, they cannot be involved in any football,” Forde explained.
The GFF boss made an appeal for corporate sponsors to partner with the GFF to support the Golden Jaguars in the CFU Caribbean Men’s Championship. He underscored the value of this sponsorship. “We went through the CFU tournament (Round 1) finishing as a best team within our group. We played that entire (Round) without conceding a single goal. We went three consecutive international engagements with victories so the Guyana Golden Jaguars (are) doing very well.” He added, “I’m very optimistic about our chances of going far in this tournament and even coming away with the championship but we simply need some timely support to make this happen. Every engagement that requires travel sets the Guyana Football Federation back close to $USD 3.5m, that’s really challenging for us. Yes, a lot of that will change over the next couple of months because of the promise that has been delivered on by President Infantino but as it is, we are challenged financially. We do not want a situation to arise where we cannot go any further because we simply cannot afford it.”
And the GFF-NAMILCO Thunderbolt Flour Power Under-17 Tournament will kick off this weekend, June 4, 2016. Total investment will be $G30M dollars over a five-year period for youth football development. The GFF expressed gratitude to the National Milling Company of Guyana.
Meanwhile, Richie Richards (Alpha United FC) has been called to the national squad as a second Goalkeeper and Mr. Anthony Abrams has been called to replace Christopher Nurse who has indicated his unavailability. Samuel Cox has been appointed Golden Jaguars Captain for the two upcoming matches against Curacao and USVI.

Pic – , GFF logo

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