AT the top of the long list of priorities for the five-member GFF Normalisation Committee apart from managing the day-to-day activities of the country’s football will be to adopt the new constitution of the GFF; to amend the current one and to organise elections according to the new constitution.

This was the mandate given by the sport’s world governing body FIFA when it disbanded the Christopher Matthias-led Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and installed Guyana’s first-ever Normalisation Committee, headed by businessman Clinton Urling.
Speaking at the GFF’s end-of-year Press Conference on Wednesday last, Urling said that the GFF’s constitution will be revised no later than February.
“Early February, we’ll have a committee of no more than 15 persons sitting on that committee for two days and FIFA will handle that process and not the Normalisation Committee and after the two days, we’ll come out with a new Constitution, hopefully and from then, all our Member Associations’ constitution should mirror or fall in line,” Urling said.
The current constitution is seen as one with contempt and its nostalgic reading of the game had brought the world’s leading sport to dispute among the affiliated member associations.
How the Normalisation Committee will go about making the historic reform is not yet known, with Urling pointing out “the approach to doing it in terms of how we’re going to our member association, I can’t say presently; maybe we will hire a consultant to go around or we go as a committee, I’m not sure of the process”.
Meanwhile, with the GFF announcing that Guyana will have a busy 2015 on the international circuit, a calendar of activity is in the horizon and one that the member associations and promoters will have to abide to, says Urling.
“All football, in particular association football, should be first sanctioned by the Federation. If it’s not sanctioned by the federation, it’s not an official tournament and moving forward come next year, if it’s not sanctioned by the federation, I know our referees will not officiate in those games. We’re not going to mandate anybody but our approach is to work in accordance to our constitution.
“The Technical Director and the Director of Finance will play an important role in what we will be doing next year.”.
It is said that the GFF is “moving away from ad hoc approaches, so the whole approach for developmental plans for the year (2015) is something that we will pursue so by early February. We have already sent out letters to our federation asking for their plans for the year”.
Urling highlighted that currently, the only tournament approved for 2015 is the Kashif and Shanghai football extravaganza which will run from March 6 to April 5.
It has become a ‘norm’ or a tradition that at the end of the year, associations and promoters host lucrative football tournaments; but not any more.
Urling raised the brows of many that gathered when he made it clear that as of 2015, the period November to January 1, will be reserved for the GFF.
“The year-end tournament will be organised by the GFF and I know that might be subjected to change later on, but as we sit here, we have decided. The executives coming in are free to make their appropriate changes but the period November to January 1 will be for the GFF,” said Urling.

(By Rawle Toney)