School boys added to expanded President’s Futsal Championship

“Bigger and better” is the order of the day for the third instalment of the President’s National Futsal Tournament, as not only increased prize monies but also an additional category will highlight the competition, set to kick off at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) in less than a month’s time.
Not only will this year’s men’s tournament see an increase in the grand prize from $2M to $3M, but the youths will also get a bite of the pie in the newly introduced School Boys’ championships.

Co-directors of the organising body, Kashif and Shanghai, Kashif Muhammad, during Tuesday morning’s launch, shared some rationale on why they continue to push the futsal agenda and now, amongst the schoolboys.
“Futsal is extremely important to the development of football in Guyana, and that’s the reason why we’re embracing it and trying to make it something really, really spectacular.”
Muhammad continued, “A couple of years now, our team would get together, and we were talking about school futsal because we want to get the real nursery for the senior futsal. Other than that, there’s the Inter-Guiana Games that plays, there’s a futsal aspect of it and we always lose to Suriname. This is simply because we don’t have a real solid futsal school team, so what we decided to do is get the schools involved and try to make this a real serious developmental programme for the school futsal.”
“We didn’t want it to be a straight knockout tournament because we just didn’t want these youngers to come and play one game and they get knocked out and that’s it. So, we did the 20 [teams] in five groups, and then we’re going to do a round robin, so all the schools will get an opportunity to play four games. Because we think, four games, the children are going to have fun, they’re going to enjoy themselves,” the organiser further enlightened.
48 teams will compete in the men’s competition, inclusive of teams from Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago, and eight in the women’s competition, while the schoolboys’ tournament will attract some 20 teams from around the country.
Director of the schoolboys’ competition Naylon Loncke emphasised that discipline will play a major role in the schools’ segment.
Loncke warned, “We’re big on discipline. We’ve noticed many times they’re tournaments where various accusations of indiscipline happen, and we’re firm in our stance that we’re not accepting any form. All students must adhere to the rules and the conditions of the tournament. Then, we’re also placing that on the teachers and the head teacher.”
“And we know this indiscipline that we’re talking about basically is cheating, where you would involve some student or some individual that don’t attend the school or isn’t of the age to be playing in this tournament. The tournament is under 18; you can be 18 during the tournament,” the coach/teacher went on to add.
The schools slated to compete are South Ruimveldt Secondary, Charlestown Secondary, West Ruimveldt Secondary, East Ruimveldt Secondary, North Ruimveldt Multilateral, New Central High, Carmel Secondary, Dolphin Secondary, St John’s College, and Cummings Lodge. St Stanislaus College, St Joseph’s High, The Bishops’ High, Hope Secondary, West Minster Secondary, West Demerara Secondary, Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary, VYC Academy and Annandale Secondary.
While the males will compete for a $3M grand prize, the second, third and fourth place finishers will pocket $1M, $500,000 and $250,000, respectively.
In the women’s competition, the winners will cart off $500,000, while second, third and fourth receive $250,000, $150,000 and $100,000.
The schoolboys’ prize will be in kind, ranging from $700,000 for first place, $350,000 for second, $250,000 for third and $200,000 for fourth place.
The National Futsal competition is set to run from Tuesday, December 9, to Friday, January 2, 2026.