FIFA Consultants present Amateur Football Environment report to GFF

Findings of the Amateur Football Environment Report for Guyana were this week unveiled and discussed with stakeholders, as the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) embarks on working alongside FIFA to enhance the local football landscape.
The report is a comprehensive multi-year assessment, aimed at strengthening the country’s amateur football ecosystem.
During the second day of engagements surrounding the report on Thursday, at the National Racquet Center, Woolford Avenue, FIFA Regional Technical Consultant for the Caribbean, Ian Greenwood shared an overview of the report and its objectives.
Greenwood explained, “This is a global project. It was detailed and comprehensive analysis of all of the member associations in global football to really understand amateur football, what is happening on the ground. So, the process took 2-3 years to complete, within that we’ve collected over 425 data points globally. From the data, we then convert that into insights and then actionable items. The actionable items are key recommendations for the GFF to implement on the ground in Guyana.”

“The idea is that over the next four years, the next World Cup cycle, the GFF along with its external stakeholders will implement these key recommendations to ensure that in all regions of Guyana, there’s access to football at all ages, whether that be grassroots programmes, domestic competitions, coach education or referee development. We’re really looking for this to be the catalyst to start that process over the next four years,” he went on to divulge.
Greenwood went on to highlight some key areas which he believes will captivate the local Federation’s attention, in the near future.
“Within the report, there’s nine clear chapters and each chapter has a set of different recommendations but we have 5 key calls to action for the GFF. One of those being to improve the status of participant registration and players tracking, second one is to ensure that we’re expanding amateur football competitions and grassroots programmes in all of the regions. We’re also focusing on improving the standards of coach education and access to coach education at all levels,” The FIFA Technical Consultant revealed.

Greenwood went on to share, “Not just talking about the licenses, we’re talking about child friendly and child specific workshops. We’re also looking at ensuring that there’s a robust framework and organizational structure for amateur football. The key one for the GFF is to ensure that they can start to collaborate with the external stakeholders and work closer government, private organisations, potential sponsors, regional associations. So that would be the 5 key calls- to- action for the GFF over the next 4 years.”
The former GFF Technical Director later chimed in on the Federation’s receptiveness to the report’s findings.
The FIFA Technical Consultant opined, “I think yesterday [Wednesday] was fantastic. We had the Executive committee members, we had the [GFF] President in the room, today [Thursday] we’ve got some key external stakeholders. I think they’ve been very receptive so far but its always going to be in the implementation. We can have the presentation, the reports, the data but it’s not to the GFF to ensure they work towards implementing these.”
“We know it can’t happen overnight. It’s up to them to prioritise what needs to be done today, what needs to be done tomorrow, next month. Within the recommendations, there’s some that can be developed very quickly, other things are going to take a little bit longer, such as infrastructure,” Greenwood further enlightened.
On the other hand, GFF President Wayne Forde spoke to the usefulness of the Amateur Football Environment report.
“We can be able to really figure out particular needs for particular demographics. If we have a large percentage of young people in one area, then maybe having just one playable facility in that area may not be adequate to meet those needs. This is what this report does, it puts at our fingertips, useful data that can help us to make good decisions,” the GFF Boss articulated.
Greenwood, alongside fellow Regional Technical Consultant David Abdul conducted sessions with Federation Committee members, and other stakeholders on the implementation of the report’s findings.