Owing to a number of persons voicing their disapproval of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) recently, the President of the Federation has come out to refute the comments.
“We have noticed a section of the media has been particularly critical of the work of the Guyana Football Federation and seems to have been locking their focus on all matters we consider salacious and can blind the good efforts of the GFF,” President Wayne Forde said on Thursday morning at the Federation’s office.
Noting that he respected the rights of the media, Forde described the situation as “unfortunate”. Much of the controversy has surrounded the Federation’s Academy Training Centre (ATC) programme. The programme is aimed at selecting young talent and bettering their performances through training and education.
GFF President Wayne Forde
In the GFF’s eyes, the programme is highly successful and is testimony to the hard work that the Federation has been doing over the past two and a half years. “Of course, that goes against my work and the vision we bring to football development in Guyana and the exceptional work that the Technical Director has been doing,” Forde said.
Speaking directly to the work that is being done, Technical Director Ian Greenwood stated that sceptical persons were welcome to visit the ATC sessions at any one of the nine stations, while praising the GFF’s efforts. “It is important that we emphasise that the level of activity that this institution has been involved in for the past two and a half years is completely unprecedented.”
Additionally, Greenwood cited the increase in certified coaches available to the football arena. “We’ve done a lot of work with CONCACAF to have registered coaches. We now have 50 licensed coaches in the country; from 0 to 50.”
He disclosed that there were also three trained CONCACAF instructors. These instructors are available to the academy and school programmes.
In citing another example of the strides that are being made by the GFF, Youth Development Officer Brian Joseph said: “In terms of camps, we’ve moved from a situation where Guyana is operating a camp only prior to a tournament.” He disclosed that the Federation was now in the habit of hosting continuous camps months prior to any competition.
