“I do not have the authority to issue a ban to any player” – Forde

President of the Guyana Football Federation, Wayne Forde refuted the news stories being peddled around

sections of the media in regards to the Gregory Richardson’s ban as completely inaccurate. It was reported that Forde had issued the ban himself, however Forde denied such actions stating “I do not have the authority to issue a ban to any player”. Forde added “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.”

Forde further stated that the only time that the players issued with the provisional ban 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.

Richardson is highly rated as one of Guyana’s best players, due to the ban; Richardson was not eligible to participate in the upcoming Scotiabank CFU (Caribbean Football Union) Men’s Caribbean Cup matches against Curacao and US Virgin Islands.

Forde explained that the “CFU has many weeks ahead of it; if Mr. Richardson is successful in his defense 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.”

He stressed on the fact that “we (GFF) 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 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.”