Last week, the Guyana Football Federation was throwing its weight around again, as seems to be its wont as of late. On Wednesday, the GFF declared that Sports Management Inc (SMI), an entity which organises grassroots football tournaments, was persona non grata, for arranging an ‘unsanctioned’ event, the Magnum ‘Unfinished Business’ Street Futsal Tournament at the National Park, on Saturday, 18th June. This announcement came on the heels of the suspension of 13 players and one official on 19th June for participating in the said affair.

The follies and shortcomings of the GFF over the last five years have been well documented in this column, but with every passing incident, the collective shallowness of mindset and basic ineptitude just continues to sink further and further. On 20th March, members of the GFF secretariat and some of their friends, led by the GFF president, effectively terminated the Lenny Shuffler Senior Women’s Volleyball Championships at the Clifford Anderson Sports Hall (CASH) just as the finals were about to commence, in order that they enjoy an indoor ‘kick-around’ (An act of bullyism, SN editorial 30th March, 2022). Prior to that event, it was the blatant violation of Covid-19 protocols at the finals of the GFF/Kashif and Shanghai Futsal Championship on 8th January, at the same venue, when in the presence of Prime Minister Mark Phillips (Head of the National Covid-19 Task Force), Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill and Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport (MCYS) Charles Ramson Jr, the organising officials stood by idly as the facility was packed beyond normal capacity.

One’s initial instinctive response is to immediately dismiss this episode as just another example of the GFF’s arrogance and high and mighty approach to the grassroots footballers. However, in delving down this rabbit hole one discovers that there is a little more than meets the eye here.

The participating teams in this ‘unsanctioned’ tournament were community/street teams, not clubs or associations affiliated to the GFF. In an exclusive interview with this publication, SMI principal, Edison Jefford said that he had not received any formal notice of the entity’s suspension, but had been made aware of it through his friends in the football fraternity. The GFF stated that he had not submitted all the requisite documentation – clearances from the Guyana Fire Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the police permit for staging the event – an allegation that Mr Jefford denies. He stated that nothing could be further from the truth; following due process he

had collected all the paperwork by Friday and had duly submitted same to the GFF which never responded.

Likewise, he never received any notification that the event was unsanctioned but was aware the GFF had actually made an attempt to inform other parties that another organisation was hosting the tournament. Other disturbing revelations from SMI included the allegation that the original application in May for renting the CASH venue had been denied on the grounds that the facility had been slated for capital works, specifically the installation of bucket seats and was unavailable. In the interim no renovation was performed and several sports disciplines were granted use of the building including basketball, badminton, and volleyball. Permission to use the CASH facility has to be sought from the National Sports Commission which is chaired by Kashif Muhammad, a principal of the Kashif and Shanghai (K&S) group, which is associated with organising football tournaments. In fact, K&S was the only entity during the Covid-19 pandemic permitted to stage tournaments, which it did in conjunction with the GFF. Is there a conflict of interest here?

Why has the GFF resorted to the draconian measure of designating SMI with persona non grata status? Mr Jefford explained in the interview that he sought to follow the protocols which other organisations that have staged similar events in recent times have not done, but suffered no repercussions. The important question here is, does the GFF have jurisdiction over street or community organised football? FIFA, the GFF’s governing body, runs association football.

On 17th December, 2017, after the GFF Extraordinary Congress to pass the 2016 Financial Statements, the GFF President declared, “We presented the 2018 schedule for competitions which shows the consolidation of football activities that will bring as you would notice in our most recent press release greater regulation of every aspect of football, including street football in particular.” He added that they were going “to levy three per cent against the total prize monies or the total gate income, whichever is higher of the two,” and since there is no gate, then the GFF intended to dip directly into the pockets of these players from the low income areas. The GFF has cast its greedy eyes on the poor man’s game for quite a while now.

At the end of the day it’s always the players who receive the short end of the stick. Why suspend the players who are under no legal obligation to the GFF? Hubert Pedro, a Golden Jaguar international and one of the suspended players, sums up the fiasco in the following words, “They want to take control of the format, they didn’t build this format. This was built by the players, and they want to control everything, and that is wrong. Football players need to take a stance, they believe that we are stupid. How can they ban us when we are not contracted to them, they don’t own us…. This will force players to gravitate more to the street format because they are not doing anything for us. They are simply trying to bully players.”

On the surface, this shambles just appears to be another hopeless example of the GFF bullying the players but when taken into account with all that’s been happening over the last three months, one has to sit up and take notice, and pose the question; what is the real end game objective here?

Viewed in a broader context, is this mess just an isolated minor tantrum? Or is this all part of the process of controlling and manipulating the masses? Collectively, these sleight of hand diversions have very serious long-term implications for all Guyanese across-the-board. Total control in any circumstances does not augur well for the future.