Grenada arrive with eight overseas players
… Manager decries reception by local officials
By Isaiah Chappelle
Guyana Chronicle
March 13, 2004
GRENADA arrived here, yesterday, for the return leg of the World Cup qualifying series, with eight overseas-based professional players in the touring party.
The overseas players are: captain Anthony Modeste (Jamaica); defender Tony Bedeau (United Kingdom); mid-fielder Shalkie Joseph (USA), Dwane Lee (UK) and Byron Bubb (UK); and strikers Ricky Charles (USA), Jason Roberts (UK) and Darrel Cox (UK).
Roberts, Bedeau, Lee and Cox did not play in the first leg, in which Grenada hammered Guyana 5-0.
But Hungary-based striker Kemon Thomas, UK-based striker Alvin Bubb of Aylesbury United and USA-based college defender Anthony Augustine of Southern New Hampshire are not in the present squad.
Charles is a college player, while Joseph plays in the Major League Soccer with New England and has just returned from a tour of Azores, Portugal, with that team.
Roberts was just elevated from the Premier League to first division, after a two million pounds (Sterling) transfer deal, while Bedeau is a second division player with Torquay United.
The other UK-based players are in non-league professional clubs - Lee with Exeter, Cox with Cheshunt and Bubb with Aylesbury.
Coach Allister De Bellotte, yesterday, told Chronicle Sport: “The professional players have a great impact on the team. They bring a high level of professionalism. Their individual skills are much higher, so the amateur players are brought to their level. The locals lift their games to the level of these guys.”
However, De Bellotte declined to make a prediction apart from winning the game, despite previous results.
“I don’t like to predict scores. We score as many as we can. Unfortunately we did not do that in Grenada for the first leg. We could have scored more. This time, we are going to score as many as we could.”
But manager Cheney Joseph is not happy with the reception accorded the team on arrival and attributed the treatment to probably what the Guyana’s Technical Director Neider Dos Santos called for.
Dos Santos had reported to the media that Guyana’s touring party was not well treated in Grenada and called for reciprocal action.
However, Joseph who is a vice-president of the Grenada Football Association (GFA) refuted Dos Santos’ report, saying that nothing of the sort was reported to the match commissioner or to the GFA.
“It’s rather unfortunate that a coach, who I believe is really trying to save his job, would do that to the sport.
“I would say categorically that the Grenada Football Association has no desire to infringe on a good relationship we’ve had with the Guyana Football Federation since as early as 1987.”
Joseph said that Dos Santos was not harassed at the airport, but it was just the requirements of certain nationals visiting the islands to have a visa, but the situation was resolved eventually because the GFA general secretary was at airport.
The vice-president also disclosed that he was talking with the touring party about an hour after their arrival and had developed a good rapport with the officials.
“There was no indication that there was a problem. I am finding it very, very unfortunate that only after the game was completed and Guyana are now in a deficit, that such remarks were made.”
Joseph said on entry to Guyana, that “reciprocal” behaviour was evident. The GFA had informed their local counterparts eleven days ago that 24 persons were in the touring party, yet only one bus was provided and they had to hire individual transport.
There was also inadequate accommodation, although the GFA was assured that everything was in place.
The manager alleged that when GFF general secretary, George Rutherford, was informed that the GFA president was here, too, Rutherford said, “Let the president sleep with someone in another room.”
Joseph declared: “That is not what football is really about and CONCACAF has not taught us that so we are hoping that it was just an individual who acted as in a ‘reciprocal’ manner, according to him, and not necessarily the kind of ideals that Mr Colin Klass we know, to have been portrayed, because I will say to you openly that your president is a very nice man and it is very unfortunate that the remarks made by your general secretary to us regarding our president.”
The vice-president pointed out that there are over 6 000 Guyanese in Grenada who welcome the hospitality and there is no need for this hostility.