After years in the making, Guyana’s first FIFA Goal Project moved one step closer to becoming a reality when the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) Normalization Committee officially signed a 30-year lease agreement with the Eccles/Ramsberg Neighborhood Democratic Council (NDC) for the Providence Community Centre Ground.
The signing took place yesterday.
During a brief address, Chairman of the GFF Normalisation Committee, Clinton Urling, said it was a monumental day for the sport.
According to Urling, the football landscape in the country will be changed.
Urling said the facility will feature an artificial playing surface which might also include Futsal and Beach Soccer playing surfaces alongside miniature football areas and a Basketball Court if space permits.
He added that work on the venue might commence as soon as next week, declaring that the committee is currently in talks with some
architects in Guyana about the blueprint of the venue. Urling disclosed that within a year or two the facility can be up and running.
He said that the aim is create a self-sustainable federation who will not have to rely on funding from FIFA, the government and the corporate sector adding that the facility will afford the country the ability to host its own games and activities and can also be rented to other sporting bodies.
The leased land which is opposite the National Cricket Stadium, is approximately 8.5 acres in dimension. Initially, Guyana was part of the FIFA Goal Project Pilot division in 1999 under then GFF President Colin Klass.
Under Klass in 2007, the GFF acquired a plot of land at Orangestein on the East Bank of Essequibo, for what was expected to be the home for the project.
After Klass was suspended during 2011 in the famous Cash for Votes scandal, the project was shelved with only a land clearing exercise ever conducted.
Under Klass’s successor, Franklin Wilson, the GFF acquired US$500,000 funding for the resuscitation of the project after initially being allocated US$400,000.
Christopher Matthias, elected to the GFF top post in 2013, discarded the Orangestein land due to the uncertainty surrounding its ownership and the distance from the capital city.
He would then engage the government in an attempt to acquire land behind the Leonora Track and Field Facility. However, nothing came to fruition as the government allegedly offered less than four acres which was not approved by the world governing body.
