Petra Organisation seeking greater collaboration with GFF to develop players

Pee-Wee Boys Under-11 Schools Football Championship…

By Akeem Greene

The fifth edition of the Pee-Wee Boys Under-11 Schools Football Championship is in full flight as the tournament has reached its round-of 16 stage and thus far they have been some fiercely competed matches.  However, Co-Director of the Petra Organisation Troy Mendonca says that their aim is not limited to organising a successful tournament but rather seeing the plethora of young talents on display   don national colours.
Speaking to Guyana Times Sport on Thursday, Mendonca was quizzed on whether he has received any structural support from the Guyana Football Federation (GFF)   in helping to develop players.

He responded saying, “Not as yet, we are hoping the plans which were stated by the new TD [Technical Director] about youth programmes will come to light; whenever they talk about youth tournaments they look to this one because of the consistency of what we do, in the past we were invited for discussions and hopefully they take that into consideration.”
Mendonca further stated, “One of our major concerns is after this [tournament], what is next? Most of these players would have gravitated to the clubs and from the time this tournament started, we have witnessed youngsters went on to play or the national under-17; we want to play that role in assisting in the development of the country’s players in trying to achieve the bigger picture through the GFF.”  Commenting on the progress of the tournament, Mendonca is of the view that   new talents are being discovered.
“I think as I mentioned before, we saw some  new talents coming   through, last weekend we saw some up sets, it goes to show that the gap is now closing between the so call big team  of the past years and the  new teams”, the organiser posited.  What in some ways can be considered a sore sight in the championship is the excess pressure some parents and supporters place on players with their verbal outbursts at pitch side when mistakes   are made by the young ones.
In this regard, Menondca stated “we can only reiterate what we said before , that is an area we have a major concern  in terms of the overzealousness of parents and other supporters  wanting to see the  children win but at the end of the day,  we got to look at the bigger picture as to what the tournament does, which is  cater for the physical development, the camaraderie and meeting new persons; at this age there is so much you can ask of these kids.”  He added, “even at the highest professional level, players make mistakes and these  are people who day in and day out  are practicing  their stuff; we want to appeal to supporters and guardians  to understand what these kids need at this point  in time which is the moral support.”  According to the organiser upon the conclusion of the group stage, no teams are knocked out, as all teams simply play for positions one to sixteen, a structure which gives more opportunities to players.
The pee-wee tournament attracted 24 schools this year and a female version is expected to be launched in the coming weeks.