GFF rolls out Club Charter initiative

…Local clubs to be sorted in Categories 1,2 & 3

By Jemima Holmes

Accompanying the announcement that football will return at the Regional Association level, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), through President Wayne Forde, revealed that the Federation will put into action their Club Charter Programme which will see the categorization of Guyana’s football clubs, in three tiers.

Clubs across the country will be sorted into categories 1, 2 and 3 based on number of and variety of teams and personnel that the clubs possess. In addition, the Clubs will receive assistance that will align with their Category.
“The way that we’ve categorized our clubs is in alignment with our MFAP Programme,” Forde shared last week, during ‘the football return’ announcement, “What we have done for the restart of football, we categorized all of the clubs at the Regional Association level in accordance with our Club Charter Programme.”
He went on to explain, “In our Club Charter Programme, we have three categories of football clubs, Category 1, Category 2 and Category 3. Category 3 is the lowest ranking of a football club in Guyana, but it also brings with it some level of material incentive.”
Expounding on the point of the GFF’s assistance, it was disclosed that every registered club in the soon-to-commence Men’s Senior League across Guyana’s 9 Regional Member Associations (RMA) will receive 4 balls, 12 bibs, 20 cones. While the initiative is geared at ensuring the Clubs have adequate resources for pre-season preparation, it also aligns with the Club Charter reward process.
In revealing the incentive aspect, Forde gave an example of the criteria that will allow clubs to qualify for a specific tier. The GFF Boss explained, “This document outlines all that is required for a club to be categorized accordingly. A Category 1 club, off the top of my head, must have a Senior team, a female team – we don’t direct either senior or junior – a youth team, a D licensed Coach and a few other things.
“Once you can meet those criteria, then the GFF provides that club with a significant complement of equipment as an incentive,” Forde stated.
While each tier will have a specific reward, it is understood that the determination of which tier Clubs will fall into will be made by the Regional Associations they are part of. After the RMAs conduct their assessment, the tier allotment will be verified by the GFF’s Technical Department.
A large part of the determination will be dependent on whether clubs function in an administrative and technical capacity, and their hosting of regular executive Committee meetings.
However, each club is starting at Category 3, for now.
“We’ve made an assumption that all the Clubs coming back from 2 years of now football are starting at Category 3. So, they’re getting the equipment that the programme allocates to clubs at the Category 3 level,” Forde related.
Having been probed by Guyana Times Sport on whether or not the Elite League Clubs will automatically be considered as Category 1 clubs, Forde explained that it is a consideration, but not yet set in stone, given the shortcomings of some of those clubs.
“The Elite League Clubs are considered Category 1 clubs. For some of them, it’s a little bit of a work in progress, because I believe there’re about three or four of those clubs that don’t yet have a functioning female arm, but in order to have their Club licence renewed this year, they will have to provide firm evidence of that,” he explained.
“We’ve been a bit flexible with them in the past, but that flexibility has expired,” Forde concluded.
The Club Charter Programme is said to be an aspect of the GFF’s Member Financial Assistance Programme (MFAP).