By Treiston Joseph
The 2016 edition of the Courts Pee Wee football tournament was launched recently at the National Library with 24 teams set to take the field from October 8.
The best Under-11 players will converge in little over a week’s time at the Thirst Park ground to showcase their football skills in an effort to lift the 2016 edition of the Courts Pee Wee championship trophy. Courts is sponsoring the competition to the tune of four million dollars.
Director of the Petra Organisation, Troy Mendonc,a who has been the organisers behind the event, was keen to note that the tournament has been productive while thanking his sponsors for the investment.
“We want to say a big thank you for your continued support of this programme, definitely your contributions over the years would have definitely had an impact on a lot of these youngsters’ lives. I think before we start the school they were two years amongst clubs and to date there are several players that represented Guyana at the national Under-17 level. So we were able to keep track of them, so definitely this programme has seen the benefits from the investment,” Mendonca noted.
President of the Guyana Football Federation, Wayne Forde, gave the tournament the Federation’s blessing while noting development at the youth level is critical for the success of the game.
“This age group that is being targeted with the Petra/Courts Pee Wee tournament is the most critical age group in the development of a footballer… the skills and techniques and discipline that you can cultivate in a player at this stage of their playing career becomes even more challenging as they get older and I think that the work we need to do over the next couple of years has to be done at this level,” Forde pinpointed.
Managing Director of Courts, Clyde De Haas, stressed that importance of such a tournament not just to Guyana, but also to Courts.
“The focus of Courts or Unicomer Guyana, which is the parent company, is to develop the sport and we are focusing at the grass-root level because that is where it matters most.
“That is where the budding talent is and that is where you can instil the right techniques and discipline and the endurance…I’m very pleased to stand here at the launch of the fifth Pee Wee under-11 Football tournament that again we can play our role as small as it is to develop and to build the future of football in Guyana,” De Haas stated.
The boys from St Angela’s Primary are the defending champions and will aim to become the first school to win the title back-to-back in the five-year history of the tournament.
Photo caption: Managing Director of Courts Guyana, Clyde De Haas (back row, fourth from left) hands over the sponsorship cheque to Director of Petra Organisation Troy Mendonca for the organising of the tournament
