Petra Organisation working towards comprehensive restart

It has been more than a year since the Petra Organization last coordinated a tournament, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Organization is now hoping to be able to restart coordination of sports before the end of the year.
“By now it’s a foregone conclusion in terms of the effects the pandemic would have had on all activities, sporting academic, everything,” Petra Co-director Troy Mendonca stated candidly to Guyana Times Sport.

Further responding to this publication’s probe of how the entity has been affected by the pandemic, Mendonca shared, “We were, especially at the school level, seeing the kind of progress where school football has moved to over the years, and we were at the stage of going after certain aspects of improving the game in terms of like coaching.
“So, definitely, with nothing happening, it was a big setback for us”, he disclosed.
However, Mendonca informed that the Organization is this week slated to meet with stakeholders on the way forward.
“That will, you know, officially kickstart our coming together again in terms of plans. Hopefully, in the next few months, when the vaccine would also be available to us, to (plan to) restart our programs,” the Co-Director revealed.
At the time of their final few games in 2020, many improvements were seen in competitiveness among school age players. While they are eager to get back to that level, the Organization is accepting the fact that it may require time.
Mendonca clarified, “We understand where we want to go in terms of the level of play that we saw or are seeing. As a matter of fact, you would know in the last KFC, one of our teams beat the favourites from Trinidad, and that in itself speaks to where we’re heading.”
He continued by explaining, “We want to know that we take it to the next level, which is engaging proper coaching for teams and so on; and so, definitely, we know where we moved from four years ago and where we want to go. And I think that where the setback is, it’s in terms of the pandemic and our programmes.”
Sharing that they ultimately have to wait until school restarts, Mendonca shared that Petra would be reserved in their approach, especially with parents’ concerns in mind.
“We basically have to have an open mind in terms of what we expect in the return of school, because we don’t know what would be the approach to things with regard to children coming together and parents allowing their kids’ coming together.
“We have a very open mind with where we’re going. We’re not expecting or we don’t want to extend ourselves and extend our thoughts. We basically want to get back to a structure of playing the sport and understanding this is for development purposes, and we take it from there,” he noted.
“We will follow all guidelines, all protocols, as they relate to bringing together people,” the Petra Co-Director has assured.