More international football possible for Linden – Forde

President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Wayne Forde made a declaration on Monday while speaking at a press conference ahead of tonight’s match between Guyana and Martinique that more international fixtures will be played in Linden town once the community can show overwhelming support at the match.

“I issued a challenge to the Linden Community and the challenge I laid out to them is that if we can have an atmosphere similar to the one we have come so accustomed to when we look at the Barclay’s Premier League, the other international friendlies that I have lined up, at least two more will go to Linden,” the President revealed.
From a financial point of view, Forde believes Linden is one of the ultimate venues to host international football in Guyana.
The Linden Community presents to the Guyana Football Federation the best financial opportunities in bringing off a big game, the cost for the venue is low, the logistics is low, marketing the game is low became we are talking about a community with a decent population and if you can get a third of the population into a venue, it is a big win for us,” the GFF boss explained.
He added, “we have seen evidence of a decline of football attendance in Georgetown and some of the other venues and even though playing the game of football is our main priority, we have to do this in an economical way and we simply cannot continue to incur in excess of $3M to take a game to a venue and don’t have a single chance of recovering that money.”
Commenting on the restoration work done on the facility, Forde stated that community has responded well and there has been lots of preparation work since “we will do everything in our power to bring prominence of football back to Linden as part of our overall strategy of the GFF.”
On the holistic view of football in Guyana, the President posited that “the goal of the executive is to bring back the prominence to the Golden Jaguars brand and we cannot keep doing that by simply participating in regional tournaments.”
Adding that “It’s not just a brand it is doing things that can influence the quality of play as well as if they can play against high class opponents; If they can do this, Guyana can be seen a force to reckon with in CONCACAF and CFU [Caribbean Football Union] and higher in the not so distant future.”
Forde disclosed that Guyana will be playing on all their international dates and for the lesser opponents, they will be using a full locally based squad but said they will air on the side of caution, stating, “we do not want to put the brand to be slaughtered…because we are arranging agreement’s for the national team and companies want to be associated with success.”
Supporting the move of Football in Linden is Banks DIH Limited under their GT Beer brand and Public Relations Officer (PRO) Troy Peters said that they are very much excited over returning to a community where they launched the beer which has garnered support.
“Linden is one our main towns and the support base for football is very strong, we look forward to an exciting match and we urge the fans to come out; we are pleased to be associated with the GFF for this venture and we look forward to me more relations as we look to push Football in Guyana as we have seen the game grow from strength to strength,” Peters stated.
In the distant past, the mining down had its fair share of international football at the McKenzie Sports Club Ground with the last exposure being May 19, 2011, when Guyana defeated Barbados 1-0. Tonight, football returns to the MSC with Guyana Golden Jaguars tackling Martinique from 20:00h. Admission is $1,500.