Guyana in tough Olympic group
By Steve Ninvalle
Stabroek News
February 25, 2003
Guyana’s Under-23 football team has been placed in a tough group for the Olympic qualifier.
The locals have been bunched with Mexico, Costa Rica, Belize and Barbados. Guyana will tangle with Barbados in a home and away tie in the second quarter of this year Guyana Football Federation president Colin Klass revealed at a recent press conference.
The winner of the tie will play the team coming out on top of a tie between Costa Rica and Belize. Klass said that no fixtures were received from CONCACAF but the GFF was preparing for matches in the second quarter of this year.
“We will have to readjust the schedule of the since we expected that our first games to be in the first quarter,” Klass said.
The Under-23s, under the eye of Brazilian technical director Nieder Dos Santos is scheduled to have a number of international warm up matches before taking on Barbados.
“We will visit Suriname, French Guiana and Trinidad and Tobago,” Klass said at a press conference at the Georgetown Club which also served to introduce the media to sponsors for the sport for 2003.
A visit to St Lucia is also being negotiated for the Under-23s. Twenty-five players are encamped from which a team of 18 will be selected.
Meanwhile, Klass thanked Demerara Distillers Limited, Humphery’s Bakery and Farm Products, Twins Manufact-uring, DeSinco Trading, NP Group of Companies, Splashmins and Medicare Pharmacy for supporting the sport locally.
“FIFA contributions alone are not adequate for the development of football in Guyana,” the GFF boss explained. He contended that it is approximately 14 million dollars to maintain any national team citing transportation as a major money puller.
Klass explained that the recent upsurge of criminal activity in Buxton forced the GFF to dig deeper into its coffers to encamp national teams since the Buxton Community centre could be rented at a price much cheaper than hotels.
DDL will be sponsoring the GFF’s Under-15 competition. DDL’s representative Ricardo McLennon would only say that his company is into a four-year partnership with the governing body for football in Guyana but declined to divulge what the sponsorship package includ-es.
The press conference was attended by George Ruther-ford (GFF general secretary), McLennon, Sasha Pompey and Shondel Hump-hery representatives of Twins Manu-facturing and Hump-hrey’s Bakery respectively and the local technical director.
