Earlier this year, it was reported that Gianni Infantino, the president of football’s global governing body FIFA, will seek the approval of his executive council for a new international women’s football league.
The proposed competition, which aims to increase the visibility, quality and appeal of women’s football, will pit 16 of the world’s top national teams against one another, and could commence as early as November 2019.
It would seem the Wayne Forde-led local administration is following in the same vein by investing heavily in the development of the women’s game. Forde stated that the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) is expected to incur $10M in expenses in running the ‘Always’ sponsored National Women’s League, set to start shortly countrywide.
“The development of the programmes we are executing in Guyana is in alignment with what is being done at the confederation level and at the international level. We try to schedule our competition so it feeds into regional competition.”
“The ultimate goal of the league is to get a sense and the statistics regarding quantum of female players we have at the senior level and also talent we can work on as we continue the integration of locally based players into the national team,” Forde stated.
He added, “The total investment is going to probably peg us back somewhere around US$50,000 to run off the league. One of the major components of the expense we will incur is the amount of teams in the hinterland community that we are trying to include which means they will be a lot of travel. It is an investment and we don’t see it as an expense.”
Minister within the Ministry of Indigenous Affairs, Valerie Garrido-Lowe, spoke of the type of partnership they hope to forge, where through her Ministry, they can expose more indigenous talents to the eyes of the federation.
ANSA McAL Trading, through its Always brand, is the sponsor of the competition. Padma Kunjbeharry, Head of the Business Unit, stated, “We at Always are happy to be a part of this as our tagline says let’s rewrite the rules as the girls rewrite the rules in football in Guyana.”
The league will kick off on October 27 and run until March 2019 and caters for 49 teams and 216 matches. Matches are expected to be played across the country and teams will contest on seven-a-side basis.
The winners will pocket $300,000 along with trophy, while second and third collect $150,000 and $50,000 respectively. Prizes will also be given for Highest Goal scorer, MVP, Best Goal scorer, Most Disciplined Team and Best Coach.
