General Secretary of the East Demerara Football Association (EDFA), Gidell Austin, is opposed to the resumption of local football during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of testing mechanisms and protocols for players.
This was disclosed during an exclusive interview with Stabroek Sport. According to Austin, “You got to get testing done. As an administrator I am skeptical about going out there and meddling with people. What about the spectators? Are we going to allow that? We must have some sort of testing mechanisms in place if we are going to play every week because the players are going back to their communities and their families. I am not sure how they are going to go about that, I am not sure how we can get around this, I think before we can start any football we must get the clearance from COVID-19 task force, start testing first and vaccination also has to happen.”
The GFF officially published their detailed calendar of activities on January 5 for the resumption of football activities in the respective member associations. However Austin conceded that while the publishing of a structured GFF calendar of activities is noteworthy, the lack of testing protocols especially for junior players is worrisome, as most parents are apprehensive of the idea of their children gathering in large groups.
He further said, “I think even though the calendar is good, and nice with the structure and we will get all the levels, at this juncture and what is happening at the moment, I don’t know how feasible it would be especially for the junior players. I don’t know if parents would want to allow their kids to go out and play, some will not. Myself being a teacher, parents are very skeptical for their children, the adults won’t mind getting tested but for the children especially it will be hard.”
According to Austin, the lack of finances at the association level renders the resumption of the sport impractical, as the respective bodies will be unable to afford the implementation of stringent measures. He declared, “We will not be financially strong enough to do testing of players every week, much less every month. We just can’t do that, I don’t think so, as an association we don’t have the capabilities to manage that. We don’t have professional players that we can keep in a space, they have to go home to their families and work and right there we see what and where the problem lies. This should not occur unless we have mass testing for players and administrators as well as vaccination.”
Austin revealed that information on funding for testing has not been disseminated or forthcoming from the federation, despite the announcing of the annual calendar of activities.
He said, “I don’t think the East Coast will resume if these are not in place, we have to put systems in place. We have not received anything on testing, the finances that we know about is the administration package which will be paid twice a year, but as it relates to COVID-19 and testing, nothing. We could only resume after vaccination and testing measures are in place. We can’t say when and how long this pandemic will persist. I couldn’t make a prediction how long it will last.”
