AIMING to appear in their second CONCACAF Champions League, Guyana’s Alpha ‘The Hammer’ United will first have to get past their Caribbean counterparts after they heighten their preparation for the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Championship. The Guyanese top club will host Group One matches of the CFU tournament, against Suriname’s Inter Moengotapoe and Trinidad and Tobago’s Central FC.

All matches will be played at the Guyana National Stadium and Alpha will play the Surinamese side on April 15, followed by a clash against one of the Trinidad and Tobago Pro-League’s dominant clubs (Central FC) on April 19.
At a Press Conference hosted yesterday, Club president Odinga Lumumba told the media that while on the field, his players are more than ready to represent their country with distinction; outside of the pitch, there’s a call for help from corporate Guyana.
Lumumba said that to host the Group in Guyana will cost them approximately $10M and despite a US$15 000 ($3M) boost from the CFU, there’s still a hole to be filled.
The Presidential Adviser on Youth Empowerment said that Alpha United will have to pay for the teams and officials’ lodging while they are in Guyana “so we’re appealing for corporate support. Sports lacks basic support in Guyana and it’s not being taken as a priority in Guyana but I tend not to speak of it any further, I just try to do as best as I can”.
“There are three ways to get money here in Guyana; you either ask the Government, approach corporate Guyana or you just have to put your hands in your pocket,” said Lumumba.
Meanwhile, head coach Wayne ‘Wiggy’ Dover believes his team have what it takes to once again make it all the way to the Champions League and said that they are presently fine-tuning preparation for the CFU event and are using the Kashif and Shanghai Football tournament as a yardstick to measure his players’ efficiency.
“The team have been training once a day, six weeks on conditioning and we’re in competition and we’re at the stage of assessing the work that we’ve done over the last eight weeks, so in this tournament that we’re involved in, we’ll be able to see how much we have to do and what we have to correct,” Dover said.
The second club from Guyana contesting the championship, Guyana Defence Force (GDF), have been drawn in Group 11 that will be hosted by T&T side DirectTV W Connection.
A total of 15 amateur and professional clubs from across the CFU will participate in the tournament which is anticipated to be highly competitive.
According to the CFU, as a reflection of the rich diversity of the CFU, the host clubs, and by extension the host countries are a microcosm of the different languages, cultures and peoples that make up the CFU.
The Preliminary Round, comprising four groups, will be played simultaneously from April 13-20, while the Final Round will be played May 20-25 in a straight Knockout format in order to crown a Champion for the 2015 CFU Club Championship and also secure the three Caribbean berths to the CONCACAF Champions League.
The respective Group winners will advance to the final phase.

By Rawle Toney