Plans in place to combat refereeing issue for NAMILCO Under-17
The Guyana Foot-ball Federation (GFF) is seeking to put measures in place to avoid any refereeing hiccups when the NAMILCO Under-17 Football tournament kicks off in a matter of weeks.
The refereeing body has, in recent times, found itself in hot water, with instances ranging from late arrivals to now shows at matches. The situation has been so severe that Director of Sport, Christopher Jones, had called out the body for not showing up at a futsal event.
Given these occurrences and the large amount of games that will be played simultaneously during the NAMILCO Under- 17 tournament, Guyana Football Federation President Wayne Forde disclosed that the Federation has had to craft a clear plan on how to combat the issue. He noted that it is not in the GFF’s best interest to be shifting officials around.
Guyana Football Federation President Wayne Forde
“We’ve developed a strategy that will be deployed at the youth level. It is not to anyone’s advantage to be moving a referee out of Linden to officiate a game in Georgetown, because at that level it is a clear case of development. Of course we have to protect the integrity of the game and we have to ensure whoever is officiating the game is not directly associated with one of the teams who are playing,” the GFF President explained.
Forde went on to explain the path that the GFF intends to take so as to have an adequate amount of referees attached to the various regional member associations (RMAs) during the intra-association phase of the tournament.
“So the strategy is that we’re going to be working within the association to have the association identify a corps of young referees that may be now entering the game or may have been there for a while. We will train them as much as possible, and have the association referees administer the games within the association,” Forde disclosed.
The NAMILCO Under-17 tournament will include playoffs within all nine RMAs, beginning in March. The winners at the RMA level will then compete against each other to crown a national champion.
