The Golden Jaguars have seemingly withdrawn from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Boys U14 Challenge Series, which is pencilled to commence tomorrow in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
According to an official release from CFU, 22 teams have been confirmed to participate in the developmental tournament, which runs from August 13 to 21, and spans 49 matches across two competitive tiers and four venues.
Guyana is not amongst the confirmed nations. The official pools are: Tier I: Group 1A: Bonaire, Curacao, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and Group 1B: Aruba, Haiti, and St. Kitts and Nevis.
Tier II: Group 1 consists of: Barbados, Bermuda, Dominica, French Guiana, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Group 2: Cayman Islands, Grenada, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Martin, and Group 3: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, St. Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands, and US Virgin Islands.
“The Tier I group phase will give way to cross-group quarterfinals. The top two teams from each group advance to the semifinals with the winners playing for the championship. The Tier II group phase leads to cross-group semifinals and the last two playing for the championship,” the release explained.
Guyana was initially drawn in Tier II – Group-1 of the tournament, alongside Bermuda, St. Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Guyanese previous appearance in the event occurred in the 2018 edition staged in Curaçao.
Efforts to contact the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) General Secretary Ian Alves for a comment proved futile. Several calls to his cellular phone went unanswered. The GFF had inked a partnership with Tiger Rentals Guyana Inc to undertake a National U-13 Developmental League, which would have served as part of the preparation for the tournament.
The aforementioned collaboration was confirmed during a simple but significant presentation ceremony held at the GFF National Training Centre, Providence, East Bank Demerara. Tiger Rentals Guyana donated $10.6 million towards the staging of the competition, which was pencilled for a July commencement. The tournament is yet to begin.
