— Forde urging vaccination as year-end tournaments approach
In anticipation of their packed December playing schedule, the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) are encouraging players, coaches, officials and fans alike to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
As they hope to stage three tournaments within the year-end season, GFF President Wayne Forde has shared that vaccination is the only avenue for pulling off successful events.
GFF President, Wayne Forde
The GFF boss made these utterances during the launch of the GFF-Kashif and Shanghai Futsal Tournament last Friday. “Let’s be clear with each other, there is absolutely no other way that we can get back to any sense of normalcy unless we have a football fraternity that is fully vaccinated. Everyone wants to see football on the pitch and here in the gymnasium, but the risk of doing that without people being vaccinated is way too high,” Forde expressed on Friday last.
“The occasion would never be squandered for me to again remind and encourage our members to please take advantage of the facilities we’re making available to you and get vaccinated. There’s no other way!” the impassioned GFF President urged.
Probed about the reception that the GFF’s vaccination drives have received, Forde had this to say: “The first weekend was last weekend, and things started a bit slow, but we’re anticipating that it will pick up this weekend. But we will continue this drive.”
However, the GFF President is still optimistic about the initiative, since there were persons who took the jab prior to the GFF vaccination drive. He explained, “We were actually pleasantly surprised when we learned about the large number of our player population and our officials and executives at the Regional levels that have already been vaccinated. So that was already a pleasant surprise.”
For the year-end season, the GFF are planning to host the Men’s Super-16 Cup, Women’s Super-16 Cup and a futsal competition. While details on the first two tournaments are still sketchy, the futsal competition – a collaborative effort between the Federation and the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation – is set to commence on December 14 and conclude on January 8, 2022.
The futsal tournament will see participation from 34 teams, and will be hosted solely at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) on Homestretch in Georgetown.
