OVER 50 women, drawn from across Guyana converged on the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Base Camp Ayanganna ground yesterday, as the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), through sponsorship from FernLeaf Milk, hosted a day of interaction and awareness for Women’s football. Under the guidance of Technical Director Claude Bolton, the day’s event saw several coaches, including National coach Jamaal Shabazz, help to guide the participants through several fun drills and engaging them in the fundamental side of the game.

“The people in the football fraternity have realised that the women want to play since it’s long overdue, going back to their 2010 run,” said Bolton, speaking with Chronicle Sport after the day’s activity.
The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) had recently announced that on Saturday May 23, the confederation will see the celebration of its first annual Women’s Football Day.
This initiative, which was presented at the CONCACAF “Let’s Develop Women’s Football” seminar held in October 2014, in Philadelphia, will aim to unite all 41 member associations to celebrate women’s football throughout the region.
“This day is dedicated to recognising the passionate, fearless, and devoted members of CONCACAF’s elite women’s teams, and to inspire the younger generation to take the game to new heights,” said CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb. “As we embrace a new era in women’s football, we aim to further develop the talents of female players in our Confederation and will continue to empower the women’s game through initiatives such as this one.”
Several activities will be organised at CONCACAF’s Member Associations with support provided by the Confederation.
Women’s Football Day will strive to achieve the distinction of being the first occasion that all of CONCACAF’s members will simultaneously organise a women’s football activity.
“The next step is the CONCACAF Women’s Day of Football to remind people that the Women’s World Cup is coming soon and we’ll participate in that. That event will help us to kick off some symposiums and conferences, along with some women’s coaching licences and will allow us to run a women’s developmental league or a ‘D’ League in October,” Bolton noted.
Since featuring in the 2010 CONCACAF Women’s Gold Cup in Mexico, Guyana’s senior National team went “M.I.A” (missing in action) but Bolton, yesterday said that the day’s event is all part of the plan to get Guyana back on the international circuit, starting with youth development.
“… It will take care of the Women in the U-15 and above, but we’ll concentrate heavily on that U-12 to U-14 age group. That U-12 in three/four years will definitely be our U-15 National team and that’s the team we’re going to use as a benchmark of how we’re going to progress in the women’s game,” Bolton said.
Meanwhile, Bolton also highlighted that plans are in place to help resuscitate the ‘Lady Jags’, noting that he’s in talks with former Technical Director Mark Rodrigues, trying to find out the location of the historic women team’s players and how he (Bolton) can have their involvement in his developmental process going forward.
By Rawle Toney