Call it what you may – fantasy or pipe-dream – the reality is that the joy evoked from the national football team’s performance was only fleeting.
Fans were brought back down to earth with the painful failure of the Golden Jaguars to get past its first hurdle in the World Cup preliminary competition.
To the more mature fans, our noses were rubbed in deeper because it was Suriname, our perennial arch rivals who sent the Golden Jaguars packing.
It dashed all hopes and aspirations generated by the team’s outstanding accomplishments over the last 18 months.
The creditable fifth place finish at the Digicel Caribbean Cup that saw Guyana winning seven matches including victories over creditable opposition like Guadeloupe, and the subsequent victory over Cuba among others, mean nothing now.
All because the team performed like ones from the recent past – eking out two listless performances that brought our football back full circle.
In the most important competition in the world, Suriname continues to be a massive stumbling block to Guyana’s progress in World Cup football.
In the midst of all the hurt one could easily conclude that regardless of the coaches we use in World Cup competition, the results will remain the same.
In 2004, an eccentric Brazilian named Neider Dos Santos, made a mess of Guyana’s first round preliminary tie for the home and away series against Grenada with his team selection.
Guyana was embarrassed by the one of the Lesser Developed Countries (LDC) of Caricom, as they used to be called, as a result.
This time around the team did not record humiliating scores, but the coach was found wanting in the use of key players.
Jamaal Shabazz wrung the changes for the return home game, but alas, he did not do enough, until too late.
Every local report on the game told the story of the Jaguars finding its menace much too late.
To the dismay of 10,000 spectators, the team only began playing with the hunger of a squad hunting a two-margin goal victory, very late in the second half following the introduction of players that should’ve been in action from the start.
The extent of hurt to the Jaguars’ chances because of Shabazz’s inability to properly assess and use the players at his disposal over the two- match tie, is debatable.
Yet the team’s demise and its problems run much deeper than the decision makers on the ground.
Guyana’s football has been crying out for effective administration for donkey years now, and is no closer to being fixed before the next coming of Christ.
The character of the GFF’s operations revolves around its president Colin Klass, who has been sitting at the helm for years too many to count.
And throughout his reign the treatment of the players have remained nothing short of abominable
This year’s Jaguars were a far cry from the dynamic squad which contested the Digicel Cup, simply because the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) never built on its success since then.
Instead, the chemistry and passion of that squad was allowed to disintegrate because, from all indications, the national ruling body sat on its laurels without making the players feel their effort was worth anything.
Why was it that JP Rodrigues, the Miami FC defender showed no interest in returning to the squad after an outstanding run in the Digicel series? Likewise, key forward Randolph Jerome could not be bothered to make the effort to leave his club in the United States for the Jaguars. If he was seriously keen, the status issue problem he explained, would’ve been sorted out well in advance.
Players from all over the world are tumbling over themselves to play for countries they are qualified to represent in the World Cup. But those with experience of the GFF are the exceptions.
Klass has a ready excuse of lack of money and has been generating lots of hot air talk since the Jaguars’ elimination.
But little does he know that the more he talks about rebuilding and other such the more disgusted he is making people feel because it is all he has been doing from the day he took office.
All talk and and little action for 20 long years.
His favorite thing is diverting attention from the failures he is responsible for.
It is no different now.
After the game Klass urged the public to look at the positives from Guyana’s participation in the World Cup, referring to the mass support of spectators at the Providence Stadium for the Suriname return game.
But for Guyanese, like all football fans around the world, winning is everything.
Should he put on another game now between the said two teams at the same venue, Klass would be lucky to pull in a fraction of the number that showed up last Sunday.
And he should be the last head of a national sports body in Guyana to complain about money.
The GFF is fortunate to be an affiliate of the richest and most generous world ruling sports body —- the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA)
It is a great pity Klass was not pressed to explain at all those press conferences, the fate of the humungous amounts of money FIFA says it has been giving to its members over the years.
Between 1999 and 2002 the GFF was guaranteed US $1 million, compliments of a promise made by ex FIFA president Joao Havelange, at the beginning of the association’s Financial Assistance Programme.
To this day on a yearly basis, the assistance programme has been continuing to fund all affiliates in varying amounts.
It is there, all in black and white on the FIFA website.
Can Klass say what he has done with $200,000,000 plus ?
Could you imagine what other national sports associations, probably with the exception of the Amateur Athletics Association, which is another basket case, would do which such massive sums?
They would do much more than develop a proper ground, which club teams Conquerors, Camptown and Western Tigers have done, and which the GFF has never come close to accomplishing.
And what of the three-year deal sponsorship deal the GFF has with telephone company Digicel, also the yearly sanctioning fees from the successful Kashif and Shanghai series and other sponsorship money from disgruntled companies that have since washed their hands of the GFF?
There is also a US $400,000 sum for a Goal Project training facility which FIFA said was approved for Guyana to start building last year.
All of this money you would expect the GFF to invest in among other things international friendly matches, home and away, to bring in revenue which is a staple for other countries.
Instead we have national players being paid measly stipends far and few between, being kicked off grounds from practice and in one instance a few years back, accommodated in snake infested living quarters.
Incredulously, there are officials who keep voting Klass back in office for 20 years and running.
