With CONCACAF signalling its intention to establish a Caribbean Professional League by setting-up of a study group, how would this influence the Guyana Football Federation’s work to improve structure and management of local clubs?
GFF President Wayne Forde
A sustainable Caribbean Professional League that is modelled from the unique circumstances of the Caribbean football reality would be the realisation of a shared vision of the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Member Associations family. I wish, therefore, to commend President (Victor) Montagliani for following through on his commitment and to assure my colleagues, that as a member of the CONCACAF Competitions Committee – I will do my utmost to contribute to the work of the sub-group.
As it relates to Guyana’s football – let me be clear, the GFF’s focus is on investing in the professional management of the game and NOT on developing a professional league. We simply do not have the fundamental building blocks at this time for a sustainable professional league. Any professional football model – that has to be heavily bankrolled by the GFF will not be sustainable. In addition, to this model being unsustainable, it will also consume vast amounts of finances and other critical resources that are badly needed for the cultivation of a sustainable model for youth development programmes, coaching education, referees’ development, capacity building, national team programmes, infrastructure development projects, etc. These are the fundamental priorities that the GFF must remain focused on for the next four to eight years. Until then, the national football machinery must remain focused on helping Regional Associations and Clubs to get better at organising football competitions at a consistently good standard, developing a better registration and data management systems, developing a marketing, CSR and PR platform and facilitating technical development of their Coaches, officials and most importantly, their players.
We have to remind ourselves that globally, professional football is played by professional clubs, with the financial resources to fund their operations. In Guyana, and like most of the CFU region, we do not have professional clubs. This is mainly because of the scale of Guyana’s economy at this moment in time. The Trinidad professional league is a good example of what is required to create the semblance of a professional football league. Despite Trinidad’s relatively strong economy and corporate community, the league exists ONLY because of a Government grant that is used to pay the players as part of a social programme geared towards crime reduction. This is not the Guyana reality.
At the core, the GFF role is to build management capacity at the Club and Association level, by providing training programmes for Club management, competition management, marketing, coaching, providing football equipment and supporting infrastructure development projects. This is what we have been doing at an unprecedented rate over the past four years. However, this alone is not sufficient and will not have a lasting impact unless the elected leaders at the Club and Regional Associations embrace their constitutional obligations with commitment and dedication.
The GFF will be establishing a membership department in the very near future, which will allow us to be closer to our members and work with them to develop solutions to the challenges they might be facing in implementing their programmes.
What additional steps will the GFF be taking to improve the competitiveness and quality of the Elite Leagues and Association Leagues?
The investment that is presently being made in coaching education will continue to influence the quality of the players we are producing as is evident in our national youth teams’ international performances. However, what is critical but difficult is to replicate the quality of coaching that is taking place in the national teams’ programme across Guyana. The Academy Training Centre (ATC) programme will help with this, but in order to really see the returns on these investments, we have to do more in educating the Coaches in every club across Guyana – from the hinterland to the coastland.
We have seen many new programmes and changes during the period of your tenure as President of the GFF, has this contributed to the structure of local football and what will the future of Guyana look like in 4 years?
I believe the evidence firmly supports a bright future for the game. While we continue to grapple with some inherent challenges at both the national and regional levels, the body of work of my administration has laid a solid foundation for the future of the sport. The restoration of the GFF’s image within Guyana and throughout the regional and global community is, in particular, a personal source of pride. I believe the fraternity’s departure from the wasteland of political turmoil to a more progressive football-oriented posture is a marked accomplishment that should never be taken for granted. Politics is inevitable in football, but it must remain as a seasonal phenomenon as we had witnessed in the run-up to my re-election in November. The future of Guyana’s football is inextricably connected to the future of our country and while COVID-19 has reminded us all of the simple things we took for granted, I remain extremely optimistic that Guyana will emerge out of this crisis as one of the strongest economies within the Region.
In more specific terms, on the national front, our goals for the future are: the completion of GFF National Training Centre at Providence, completion of the GFF Football Complex at Durban Park, improving football facilities across the country, making football equipment more affordable and accessible, increasing the number of qualified Coaches and being able to fully execute our National Football Calendar among others. Finally, much of this will not be possible without the support of the entire football fraternity, corporate Guyana, and the Government of Guyana. On the international front, we would like a second appearance at the CONCACAF Gold Cup; I would like to see our youth teams advancing beyond the group stage of regional competitions consistently and the Golden Jaguars qualifying for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
