The Petra Organisation in collaboration with Top Brandz Distributions, under their Corona brand, launched a 12-team Georgetown Football Association (GFA) sanctioned tournament yesterday.
Petra Director, Troy Mendonca, who spoke on behalf of the group, said that his organization was pleased to be involved with yet another football initiative which will aid in the development of the game.
“As you remember, five years ago we launched our senior football tournament and we talked about revitalizing the sport in schools and aiding the development of these youngsters,” Mendonca told the media at the launch.
Vice-president of the Georgetown Football Association (GFA), Arron Fraser, and President of Guyana Football Federation (GFF), Wayne Forde, both congratulated and lauded Petra and Top Brandz for stepping up and filling the void by presenting city youngsters with the opportunity of playing the sport they love.
Meanwhile, Pratima Prashnajeet, Director of Marketing and Sales of Top Brandz, told the gathering at the company’s office on Broad Street, Georgetown of the significance of her company’s support while also highlighting the importance of embracing Corona’s new punch line -“This is living.” The tag line encourages patrons to engage in activities outside of the bar and still enjoy “a beastly cold Corona,” she said.
“We [Top Brandz] have a high interest in positioning our brand alongside sports. Football is a booming sport in Guyana I would say and that’s coming from a cricket fan and as a supplier, that’s a market we need to invest in hence the Corona Football tournament and we are extremely happy to have our Corona Brand associative with this huge football event,” she declared.
A date is still being decided on for the competition and Top Brandz will present fans and followers of the tournament with the opportunity to pay an entrance fee which will also cover the cost of a certain amount of Corona and other attractions.
The competition will run for nine weeks and teams, after the kickoff, will go head-to-head for the top prize of $1M while second, third and fourth place finishers will pocket $400,000; $200,000 and $100,000 respectively.
All matches will be held at the Georgetown Football Club ground and Tucville Playfield which will see matches being held on Fridays and Sundays, mainly.
The opening match will incur no cost to fans while women will be admitted free for the remainder of the tournament. The 12 clubs participating are GFC, Campton FC, Santos FC, Pele FC, Beacon FC, Northern Rangers FC, Western Tigers FC, Riddim Squad, Flamingo FC, Black Pearl FC and East Ville FC.
The competition will take the format of round-robin initially with two groups of six. The top four teams, however, from each group will advance to the quarterfinals, semis and ultimately the grand finale
