The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) on Saturday laid out a provisional roadmap for the safe resumption of competitions this year, distributed laptops along with other kit and equipment to its members, conducted a briefing for members on their compliance obligations to the Members Financial Assistance Programme (M-FAP), and also provided the participants with a social media content development briefing.
Hosting a Return to Play M-FAP Workshop for its members at its National Training Centre in Providence, the GFF presented a four-month competition season plan that included national tournaments for senior men, senior women, and male and female youth teams.
As part of the Return to Play presentation, the administration solicited feedback on its plans from Regional Associations and clubs to fine tune its approach to the highly-anticipated restart, which will be governed by approval from the National COVID-19 Task Force.
Two months ago, the GFF submitted a detailed return to train and play plan to the Task Force. This plan was developed with the support of UEFA and was successfully exercised during the 2020 end-of-year “bounce back” tournament.
Under its pioneering M-FAP initiative, which distributes funding and support directly to members to boost investment and development in a targeted way, full team kits were distributed to the Regional Associations and Elite League clubs to ensure that teams have bespoke, professional standard uniforms for upcoming competitions.
Prior to the distribution, the participants were briefed on the attendant compliance obligations and strict oversight that come with the M-FAP.
The GFF also handed out laptops to its nine regional associations, the National Association for Women’s Football and the Referees Association in the first phase of its information technology integration strategy.
Through this initiative, GFF members will be interconnected through a licenced intranet service, which will allow information sharing and secure access to resources with the aim of improving their operational work and performance.
“The initiative of the Federation is great – the equipment we received will take the club a far way because we have kits for both male and female, which we appreciate very much. Financially, it will help the club in a far-reaching way,” said Dennezze Lovell, the secretary of Den Amstel FC and representative of the West Demerara Football Association.
“In all my years in the football fraternity, I have never experienced such from the Federation and I am grateful to Mr. Forde and his team,” she said.
During the day-long workshop, participants engaged in a social media briefing that focused on content development and fan engagement across the membership, with an emphasis on growing and enhancing the online presence of football.
“It was a remarkable day for football, first and foremost; I was very happy to spend time with our members to share with them the projects and programmes that we’ve been working on, but also to see how excited they were to receive their playing kits,” said GFF President Wayne Forde.
Stressing on how critical is the approval from the task force to resume play, the GFF President said, “All of these members still have more material to receive under M-FAP, but we’re not going to give out the other football development equipment until we get permission to return to play from the national task force.
“We’ve gone to all lengths to explain to our members that we have to be patient. We know that there is still an ongoing pandemic and we will continue to work closely with the task force and the other health authorities to ensure that safe and responsible decisions are taken around the return of football to the pitch,” he concluded. (GFF)
