By Treiston Joseph
The Guyana Beverage Incorporated, a subsidiary of S. M. Jaleel and Company, on Friday, under their Fruta orange juice brand, renewed its sponsorship of the Fruta Conquerors Football Club.
At a simple, but yet significant presentation, held at the company’s headquarters in Diamond, East Bank Demerara, it was noted by General Secretary of the Club, Daniel Thomas that the club was pleased to be associated with a “quality” brand such as Fruta.
Meanwhile, General Manager of Guyana Beverage Inc, Marc Telting stressed that due to the Tucville-based club exhibiting great qualities, it was only fitting that the drinks distribution company continue its 19-year long fruitful partnership.
“It’s a great and fantastic club, just like our brand Fruta, the best juice of Guyana; and we are so happy to be able to further promote and develop our brand together with the growth of the club. So our brand will benefit from the experience with this and from the popularity of the club” Telting said.
He added “the club is a real grass root club, they have their own playing ground, they have their supporters and they develop their own players… they have youth and an elite you know… they have high experienced just like what we have with our Fruta brand”.
Newly elected President of the club, Alex Bunbury who resides in Canada spoke about his vision of the club during a live Facebook call at the press conference.
“I am 100% behind everything we are trying to accomplish as an organisation when it comes to youth development, for me that’s our number one priority is youth development and from there we have our feeder system that leads to the senior team” said Bunbury.
According to the Canadian football Half of Fame inductee, “our (Fruta Conquerors) conduct on and off the field with represent who we are as an organisation, what I believe is that we have an opportunity now in the second year of this great league to take Guyana into the 21st century when it comes to football… football in my humble opinion is the number one sport in Guyana when it comes to people of ethnicity, when it comes to disadvantage folks, disadvantage youths as well… so we want to capitalise on the passion they have for the sport and use what we have with our sponsorship t enhance the lifestyle and the social skills of our players and our young players in particular”.
In addition, newly appointed Head Coach of the club, Sampson Gilbert was also keen to highlight that the main focus will be on the development of the young studs the club boasts as the Fruta-sponsored club aims to continue their rich tradition of talent development.
Meanwhile, with the new sponsorship, the club will be hosting an under-19 league from this Sunday which is being dubbed as the Fruta Conquerors under-19 Academy League.
The league will have 12 teams participating with three coming from outside of Georgetown.
Nevertheless, with 20 years on the horizon next year for the partnership between the club and their sponsors, Telting revealed that the 20th anniversary will be celebrated in a more grandeur fashion.
