By Treiston Joseph
Progress is being made on Guyana’s first FIFA Forward Project albeit at a slow pace that has been attributed to the recent unpredictable weather patterns.
At a site visit on Friday afternoon to what the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) is calling the National Training Centre, Vice-President of the GFF, Rawlston Adams, gave an update on the project, noting that phase one should be completed “in the last week in April”.
Phase one will include the foundation, drainage and irrigation as well as the completion of the turf. President of the GFF, Wayne Forde, pinpointed the most important goal at this point for the federation, while revealing one of the modifications to the project.
“But what we want to do over the months following that (completion of phase one), is to make the venue functional for actual games.
“The lighting system that will go in will be specific and we have selected the lighting level and it is being specked in accordance with the CONCACAF system. We have selected tier two lighting, which would allow us hold high level CONCACAF tournaments at this venue once it’s completed,” Forde explained.
There will be other modifications to the facility such as the addition of a technical department that will also see the instalment of various training apparatuses that will allow for the development of talent. According to Forde, this will in turn deviate from the original plan to have various types of pitches at the facility.
This means that should the federation choose to have a relapse centre at the facility, the beach pitch can be removed and replaced with such a facility at the Providence venue.
Funding for the modifications, according to Forde, will not be an issue but the GFF boss noted that the access to the funding can possibly delay the progress of the facility as well because of the year to year grants by FIFA.
This will be Guyana’s first such project after a couple of failed attempts since former FIFA President Sepp Blatter first turned the sod for a similar project in 2001.
