Despite returning from their disastrous CONCACAF U20 Men’s Championship in Florida on November 11th, some of the Golden Jaguars management staff are still owed stipends by the Guyana Football Federation [GFF].
This was revealed by a source close to the federation. According to the source, “They still owe several members of the management staff half of the money, which is around $70,000 per person. They had given the team half before they left and the staff was told that they would receive the other half when they returned. The staff has been running around and has gotten no word from anyone inside the GFF.”
The source further said, “They have not given them a timeline for the payment, all for the exception of Head-Coach Wayne Dover and Wilson Toledo who are staff of the GFF, the other five or so individuals that were on the management team are owed. They include the other coaches, team manager, equipment manager, team doctor and physiotherapist.”
This is a recurring theme of football national teams that depart local shores, with players not spared from this embarrassing situation. Despite participating at the CONCACAF Beach Football Qualifiers from February 20th-26th 2017 in The Bahamas, the Guyana Men’s National Beach Football Team, is yet to receive their remuneration from the federation. This was disclosed by members of the team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity during an earlier interview with this newspaper.
According to the players, “When we were in Barbados [for an earlier invitational tournament] we almost got put out of the hotel because the GFF didn’t have the funding. Each player was supposed to get about US$700, but they give us US$250 and said when we go to Bahamas we would get the rest and when we went to Bahamas, they didn’t give us anything.”
The players stated, “They [GFF] said when we came back home they would have dealt with it. That is more than one year now and they still owe us. They owe at least US$400 per player and it was 12 players. The GFF said they would call us and never did. No one from the GFF has contacted us for months. Similarly, the GFF still owes monies to the players who took part in a one-off football match in Indonesia in November 2017. This was also disclosed by a player who spoke to Stabroek Sport on the condition of anonymity.
The aforementioned incident was the catalyst for the players striking and refusing to play their final tour match of the Brazilian trip during the month of August 2018.
