Clamouring for change!

Do persistent calls for an end to the tenure of Guyana Football Federation President Colin Klass mark an emerging awareness among stakeholders of the potential of football as a vehicle for fostering national pride?

Guyana Football Federation President Colin Klass
Guyana Football Federation President Colin Klass

The current clamour for an end to the long tenure of President of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Colin Klass is not without precedent. This time, however, it is more persistent and, it appears, more widespread.

What appears to be in evidence this time around – or at least so it seems – resembles a demand of  accountability for performance, a demand that has long been the scourge of managerial careers particularly in European football and increasingly in other forms of sport.

If it is that this development marks a genuine demand that sports administrators in Guyana account to stakeholders for their stewardship then that is a healthy sign. It coincides with other important developments in local and regional football -like the appearance of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in the last two World Cup finals and, to a lesser extent, the performance of the Golden Jaguars in the 2007 DIGICEL Cup.

What the latter accomplishment did was to create among local stakeholders in the game a belief that Guyana too could someday grace football’s most prestigious stage and even if South Africa in 2010 was no more than a pipe dream, the mere fact that we could dare to dream in the first place was a significant achievement.

Football at its highest level is as much a high-stakes multi-billion dollar business pursuit as it is a popular sport. In that sense there is a great deal less at stake here in Guyana where the pressures to perform, either at club level or at national level, are far less intense. It is much the same with officials who hold office in the game. There is no scrupulous monitoring of performance by millions of ‘educated’ fans who draw parallels between performances on the field of play and national, regional or provincial pride; and there is no ferocious media watchdog tradition that ruthlessly exposes underachievement in the management of the game and joins the spectator din for heads to roll,

Otherwise, the leadership of the GFF would probably have long been hounded out of office on account of its signal failure to transform the currency secured from the performance of the Golden Jaguars at the 2007 DIGICEL Cup to a groundswell of popular national support for the game. Rather than post-DIGICEL popular national adulation and generous gestures of material and other forms of support from both the public and private sectors, what we have seen are continuing weaknesses associated with a lack of funding, a paucity of facilities and patent evidence of an absence of any structured plan for taking the game to what its adherents are fond of describing as the next level.

Arguments about the reasons – political and otherwise – why either the government or the business sector appear particularly mindful about the fortunes of local football hardly gainsay what can only be described as the paucity of leadership skills, tact and public relations acumen demonstrated by the Federation.

Up until now the call for GFF President Colin Klass to go has been little more than a cacophonous clamour and as a contributor to a recent media call-in programme put it, a jockeying for succession to a position that is not without its perks and privileges. The baying for blood among Klass’ detractors is a reflection of the tarnished culture of the sport itself, of the mediocrity of its management at every level and of an infuriating tradition of rabble-rousing and conspiracy that has become ‘second nature’ to the game.

Whether Klass goes or stays should be determined by a few critical factors. First, there is the question of whether or not two decades as President of the Federation are not more than enough in a sport that is evolving rapidly and, where, perhaps, a juncture has not been reached where length of tenure has bred a stultifying complacency. Then there is the question as to whether, at this juncture, the local game does not need a new brand of leadership, one that brings to the table the managerial and diplomatic skills  to attract more lucrative support for the game.

Then there is the question of the accomplishments of the Federation under its current leadership; whether or not, for example, it is fitting for part of the Golden Jaguars to be ferreting around in search of a practice venue shortly before a series of important international matches while the others, based overseas, are left to wonder whether arrangements will be made for them to get to Guyana to represent their country.

Those advocates of the continuity of Klass’ tenure have argued mostly that the losses suffered by the Golden Jaguars against Suriname and the inadequacies of the Federation cannot be blamed on its President. That is perhaps the weakest argument of all since its validity is altogether eroded by the principle that power carries with it a measure of responsibility. The discourse about who really is to blame is both tedious and counterproductive. As it is with the more mature – and more successful football cultures of Europe and elsewhere – it is those that are given the responsibility to accomplish things that must carry the can for the lack of accomplishment. (Troy Peters)