When Presidents collide: Football development to take off after Ali-Forde meeting

The President of Guyana, Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali and the President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), Wayne Forde met on Monday morning at State House, where a number of projects with regard to football’s development were discussed.
As it seems, Guyana’s Head of State has pledged his and, by extension, the Government of Guyana’s support for the transformation of the sport locally.
High on the agenda on Monday morning were infrastructural matters, according to Forde, during an invited comment.

“We spoke about infrastructure and the state of football infrastructure across Guyana and also we touched a bit on the venue that they’re now playing international games on, which is the Leonora Track and Field and I shared with His Excellency, some urgent need for maintenance there, to bring it up to CONCACAF-FIFA standard,” the GFF boss shared.
He gave more insight on his consultation with President Ali, revealing, “This morning we spoke about general football development matters, specifically support that the GFF needs at the moment for the ongoing Nations League campaign. We spoke about quality-of-life initiative for current footballers and former footballers; we spoke about the importance of strengthening the FIFA Football For Schools programme and the possibility of having former footballers assigned to schools to help the young boys and girls improve when they’re playing football.”
In addition, the Presidents discussed the implementation and hosting of a President’s Cup football tournament, which has been received positively by both parties. The GFF will now draw up the framework of the tournament, which Forde hopes to get underway soon.
“God willing, we will be able to launch that tournament some time this year,” Forde said .
“The President assured me personally of his support for football and I was very happy to hear that,” the GFF President concluded. (Jemima Holmes)