… failure to acquire passports cited as main reason
DIRECTOR of Sport Neil Kumar yesterday shed his disappointment while announcing that Guyana would not be fielding a female football team at this year’s Inter Guiana Games (IGG) which is set for French Guiana March 26-28. It was agreed under the protocol of the games that is played in two stages, that in the first leg, the three countries; Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname, would feel both male and female athletes for the disciplines of Track and Field, Football, Swimming, Basketball, Volleyball, Cycling and the recently added Chess.
Guyana, in the first leg last year when it was hosted here, fielded a female football team who were devastated in their two matches losing 13-0 to Suriname and 7-0 to French Guiana.
In several interviews with various sections of the media, prior to the selection of athletes to represent Guyana at the 43rd staging of the IGG, Kumar said that Guyana would field a female football team but two days before the contingent’s departure, the sad announcement was made of their absence.
Failure to acquire passports and visas to the French colony was cited as the main reason for the women’s non-participation and according to Kumar that should have never happened since the players and those responsible for them were well aware that the games would have been played in a territory that requires international travel document.
The players selected to represent Guyana were all from the Ancient County and he noted that the National Sports Commission (NSC) had even offered to get the passports for those who were in need and still the parents of the players were reluctant to get the must needed documents.
“The thing is, we offered these people to get the passports and they made a number of excuses. First the parents said that they did not have the money to get a new passport so we said ok, come to Georgetown and we’ll look it after.
Still they say that they don’t have money to come, ok, we said, we will send a bus for them to come down and still they couldn’t come because most of them said that they are single parents and they can’t leave work to come to Georgetown,” a disgusted-sounding Kumar said.
Nevertheless, the Sports Director said that he is not too concerned because of the fact he didn’t feel that the girls were ready and a repeat of last year’s performance was awaiting them.
“I’m not too worried you know, because one, the team wasn’t training but the only thing I’m upset about the fact they knew of these games since last year and we reminded them last November about it and we even told them in advance, we have to get a visa because French Guiana do not accept travel documents like Suriname. You must have an international passport because you have to get a visa,” Kumar noted.
He further added that was still confident that the male team would perform much better than they did last year and pointed out that for Guyana to win the first leg, the male Football team and Athletics would have to come out on top.
“I’m not going to fool myself, if we want to win the first leg, the footballers and athletics would have to do it for us. I think we will win the athletics championships again and the male football. The swimming I’m not too certain because they don’t have most of their experienced swimmers with them but they will give a good account of themselves,” the long-standing Sports Director said.
Meanwhile, coach of the male football team, Joseph ‘Bill’ Wilson, just like Kumar, believes that this team will do better than they did last year.
“We are not thinking about last year” Wilson told Chronicle Sport during a recent interview as he noted that his team’s intention is to come back from French Guiana with gold.
“I don’t think it’s right for us to go there just wanting revenge so to speak; it just wouldn’t be fair on the players and others so what we would be doing is go there and just play our football, so we can come back here with a win. I think that the guys are ready and it’s just that we now have to make it happen,” Wilson said.
Asked how prepared the team is, Wilson said: “What happened is that we made a few late changes to the team, but that apart, I think they are ready. We played a few warm-up matches and based on what I saw, I think we would do well over there”
But it’s not all bright, and in the camp, as the coach pointed out, he has a major concern about the fitness level of the team.
Wilson, a teacher at the North Georgetown Secondary School, noted that the players were lately brought together and not enough time was given for them to properly prepare. However, he is still certain that the amount of work that they have done over the past couple of weeks is enough to take them through.
“We cannot build a mountain in such a short space of time. I’m going to transform all the negatives into positives though. Fitness appears to be a concern but there is enthusiasm, skill, experience, knowledge and things like that. Basically, I planned a Beep Test because last week when there was one, a lot of them failed,” Wilson explained.