GFA to collaborate with other associations on end-of-year knockout tourney

By Iva Wharton

The Georgetown Football Association (GFA) is moving to include other associations in its Banks DIH end of year knock out tournament says Kwabina Griffith, Vice President with responsibility for Technical and Tactical Development.

According to Griffith the GFA plans to expand the tournament.

“The actual extent of it we have not yet decided but we have had expressions of interest from associations to join the tournament and this is being considered and once the details are worked out they will join us in the end of year tournament,” Griffith told Stabroek Sport.

The details, he said, will include the implications of associations affiliated to Guyana Football Federation (GFF) competing in GFA-sanctioned competitions.

Kwabina Griffith

“The first step is that they are interested and it now becomes a matter of working out the logistics and all those other things,” Griffith added.

One issue facing the GFA is whether the Guyana Football federation will give its blessing to the competition in view of the fact that the two sides are in court.

Griffith would not be drawn into revealing which associations the GFA would be collaborating but said that the GFA was in an advanced stage of planning the competition.

Last year, the GFA tournament clashed with the annual Kashif and Shanghai tournament and Griffith was asked if he was concerned that teams may gravitate to the more than 20-year-old invitational tournament, which has sought to bring together the top teams from around the country and also a few from the Caribbean.

“I am not worried about that because the Georgetown Football Association has shown tremendous cohesiveness over this period and I am confident that the teams under the umbrella of the Georgetown Football Association would be part of our year end tournament,” was his response.

Griffith also revealed that the commencement date for the Super 8 tournament will be announced in a matter of days.