Kool Kidz Futsal Festival to introduce sport to children

For the next 6 Saturdays, the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) will be lit up by the eager faces of 6-to-10-year-old children as they learn about the sport of football.

These budding football enthusiasts will have the opportunity to learn about the sport through the futsal method — one result of a collaboration between the Guyana Beverages Inc, under their Kool Kidz brand, and the Guyana Football Federation (GFF).

The children will not be taught the futsal rules per se, but the use of the term is applicable to the programme being hosted indoors, on the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall court.

GFF President Wayne Forde has highlighted why the futsal introduction is important.
“We recognise the opportunity that will be presented by our young kids being home during the school break, and how interesting it would be to introduce them to the game using the futsal model,” Forde has informed.
“Those of us who are familiar with football development in our neighbouring partner Brazil, children are introduced to football at the earliest stage, in the futsal format. In many professional clubs, they play that format up until they are 11 or 12 years old,” he explained.
While the Guyana Beverage Inc had initially agreed to this year’s Kool Kidz initiative, it was announced by General Manager Samuel Arjoon that the programme would be extended.
“When this discussion started, Wayne said to me, ‘It’s a summer programme and we’ll run it for one year’, which is this summer. But the surprise is, we’re going to enter into a contract with the Guyana Football Federation to have this programme run for three years,” Arjoon announced with a smile.
Hailing the efforts to introduce the 6-to-10-year-olds to the sport, Subject Minister Charles Ramson Jr. emphasised the importance of sustainable partnerships.
Ramson Jr. explained, “Now, why this is important to starting at this tender age with kids, it’s because we’ve got to bring that renewal of talent into your structure at all times. What has been kind of one of the bugbears and has not helped in progressing our talent in football, and all the other sports too, is there’s always been a bottleneck. There’s always been a breakage of the partnership in the structure, so that the pathway leads them progressively all the way to the top.”
The Kool Kidz Festival will be hosted every Saturday, for the next 6 weeks, from 10am to 1pm at the Sports Hall. The children would also have game time in random 8-member teams.
GFF Technical Director Bryan Joseph revealed that parental involvement is something the Federation is looking forward to having.
“Of significance, though, is that we want to ensure that this programme reiterates the importance of parental support. So, we’re encouraging the parents to accompany their children to the sessions every Saturday, so that we could also develop a relationship with the parents, so they could have an understanding of what is required to aid in the development of their kids,” Joseph has said.
With the hope of reaching more than 100 children, it has also been revealed by Joseph that the potential players would feed into a National Under-11 tournament to be launched in August. (Jemima Holmes)