The Guyana Football Federation (GFF), the local governing body of association football, in partnership with the Kashif and Shanghai (K&S) Organization, officially announced the staging of their Super 16 year-end championship yesterday.
At a press conference held at the entity’s Section-K, Campbellville headquarters, it was stated that the tournament will last for eight days, with the 16 teams emanating from various associations and districts.
Amongst the associations, Georgetown will field five teams, while Linden and East Coast Demerara will be represented by two teams each. Bartica, Berbice, East Bank Demerara, Essequibo, West Demerara and Rupununi will have one participant respectively, with Rupununi’s involvement coming in the form of an All-Star or Combined Team selection.
Similarly, an Indigenous All-Star setup from the other hinterland communities will also feature in the tournament. Prize money for the respective top four finishers in the main tournament was not announced.
The eight playing dates of the event, following the end of the qualifying section, are December 12th (GFC), Friday 17th (Buxton Ground), Sunday 19th (National Track and Field Centre, Leonora), Wednesday 22nd (MSC ground, Linden), Saturday 25th (Buxton Ground), Sunday 26th (MSC ground, Linden), Wednesday 29th (GFC), and Saturday January 1st (National Track and Field Centre, Leonora).
While a date for the qualifiers was also not stated, it was revealed that a direct elimination format will likely be used to determine the respective participants.
“We believe that the uniting power of the sport is needed now more than any other time in our country. We are happy to partner with the K&S Organization and many of the other stakeholders and sponsors and investors that we will be partnering over the next couple of weeks,” said GFF president Wayne Forde.
“Everyone involved in these activities will have to be vaccinated. My staff is currently coordinating the vaccination drive throughout the nine regional associations and within our membership bodies and officials, referees, match commissioners and all those who serve the game. We are also making it absolutely clear to all our fans that unless you are vaccinated you will not be able to access the game venues,” he added.
“We feel confident that the members will respond positively to this requirement and we are here to work with you and support you in any possible way. Pretty soon we will be announcing the specific vaccination sites in every member association and I want to use this opportunity to encourage all our players and officials to get vaccinated so we can once again experience the excitement and the passion we are longing for,” he continued.
Stating that the GFF was in control of its yearly almanac, Forde expounded, “The GFF is in complete control of the annual calendar. We made clear in the past that they will be two periods that will be controlled exclusively by the GFF, that is the August period and the year-end period. Outside of that we are very flexible.”
According to Forde, the tournament will also be utilised as a platform in partnership with the Ministry of Health, to raise awareness about an important disease, adding that further details will be made public shortly.
All the Elite Clubs will be migrating from the association that they came from, and will feature in the respective qualification process.
“The reason for such a decision is that no one has been playing football, so there isn’t any club that can claim that they have any particular advantage, no one has had any meaningful leg hours. We believe that it can add an element of excitement,” he declared.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the National Sports Commission (NSC) and Co-Director of K&S Organization, Kashif Muhammad said, “We need football to win in all of this. We have to connect to all the stakeholders. Covid has put a damper on everything worldwide. The places are opening up and we are happy to work with Mr. Forde because Mr. Forde has some pretty good guidelines coming from FIFA and that is how we got the opportunity to open up last year and do the Bounceback Football.” He added, “We will follow those same guidelines to give football to the fans once again and let the players start enjoying themselves. The bottom line is that it’s a rebuilding process and this is the beginning of it and we will be heading there because football we think is in safe hands and this type of collaboration can only do well for football.”
