By Kizan Brumell
The Georgetown Football Association (GFA) on Wednesday evening launched the 2008 Premier League football competition which will be sponsored exclusively by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) Cellink Plus at the Waterchris Hotel.
At the simple ceremony chaired by Troy Peters and attended by representatives of the sponsors and the GFA, along with players and coaches of some of the first-division teams, the GFA unveiled the trophy for the winning team and presented the first round fixture.
As was expected the GFA promised an exciting competition full with heated rivalries from among some of the younger teams.
Tournament power-house Alpha United Football Club, the defending champions, who are flaming hot after coming off a Mayor’s Cup title win, will hope to repeat so as to capture the coveted Cellink Plus Trophy and first place prize of half a million dollars which accompanies the win.
Last year’s runners-up Pele Football Club along with the Fruta Conquerors, Sunburst Camptown, Santos FC, the Guyana Defence Force, the Georgetown Football Club and Uprising Football Club will hope to dethrone the champions.
However, if their efforts are unsuccessful, they may not be too unhappy to settle for the runner up prize of G$250,000, the third-place prize of G$150,000 and the fourth-place G$100,000 prize.
Throw in medals, trophies and individual prizes for the top performers and the GFA’s boast of an action packed tournament might not prove to be too far-fetched.
The much anticipated ceremony got underway with GFA’s secretary Marlan Cole giving a brief tournament report which paved the way for the introduction of the GFA’s president Troy Mendonca.
Mendonca outlined the tremendous impact the tournament has had in the development of football in the nation.
“We should use this tournament as a catalyst in the development of football in Georgetown and Guyana to a larger extent,” Mendonca said adding that this year the teams would be more mentally, physically and tactically prepared than previously.
“In a bigger picture, for us as a football nation or people, I think we need to approach management and the playing of football from a business point of view and for us to be able to do that we must be able to plan, for us to plan we must have assurances in terms of resources and this is where companies such as GT&T, Courts Inc., Clico, Banks DIH, Guyana Beverage Company and New Building Society need to be committed and that is the only way this game will proceed,” Mendonca said.
Guyana Football Federa-tion (GFF) General Secretary Noel Adonis commended the sponsors and the GFA for taking football this far and organizing the tournament.
Adonis said he believed that the GFA should be very proud of its achievements and accomplishments in the past year and said he was certain the GFA was looking forward to doing better in 2008.
“We can all together recognize our shared responsibilities, our individual and collective roles in the football organization and it is my hope that we can all contribute to make it better than it is today,” Adonis said in closing.
Associates of the tournament, Clico and the National Aids Programme Secretariat (NAPS) were represented by Owen Mason and Nassir Hussain respectively.
On behalf of NAPS and the Ministry of Health, Hussain thanked the GFA and Cellink Plus for the opportunity of helping them educate the nation on HIV/Aids and once again thanked GT&T for the support they have been giving the Ministry of Health.
Mason said that the football fraternity was in good hands as Clico was encouraging the playing of football.
He urged persons participating in the competition to have fun.
After the unveiling of the Trophy and the presentation of balls, the closing remarks came from the representative of GT&T Royston Wharton who said his company was in its second year of sponsoring the Premier League.
“I applaud this year’s initiative to partner with NAPS. I think it is an initiative that demonstrates to the players and to the society at large that the GFA is concerned not only with the game and not only that they realize that they not bigger than the game but they [are] realize that they need to look out for the participants of the game whether it be the players or spectators,” Wharton said.
