Kashif and Shanghai clears air on allegations
AFTER weeks of bickering in the media, the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation (K&S) has finally brought closure to the allegations and cries from the clubs, more so Alpha United about the treatment given and their various requests.
The organisation, which is headed by Kashif Muhammed and Aubrey ‘Shanghai’ Major, held a press conference at the Golden Coast Restaurant in Georgetown, and with the media in full attendance, it was declared that things are not always what they seem. President of the Alpha United Football Club, Odinga Lumumba, on a recent airing of the Supligen Sports Desk aired on HBTV Ch 9, disclosed his club will not be participating in this year’s tournament, arguing that since the tournament has been running for 21 years in succession, the organisers should raise the prize money from $2M to $3M and also that the teams should be given more for their appearance since they (K&S) have been able to make significant returns from the competition over the years.
However, at yesterday’s press briefing, Muhammed said that the profit made from the tournament over the years would not permit them to come up with the request of Lumumba.
“For this tournament alone between the levy fees, referees fee and tournament prize money, that amounted to over $8M and I can tell you today with records to prove that we don’t make that back in profit at the end of it all,” Muhammed pointed out.
The tournament which is celebrating 21 years of existence, according to Organisors started with a prize of $4 000 winner-take-all, and now the winner will take home $2M – a show of continued growth but he said that they can only give as much as they get.
“This today is to clear up all the lies that were published in the media over the past week. It was said that we are getting $35-$40M in sponsorship and that is certainly not so,” Muhammed said.
But when asked by Chronicle Sport to say how much did they receive, he added “I don’t want to say but it’s not even nowhere close to that amount that was being claimed.
“When we got a word that we would be getting a certain amount of money this year the first thing we did was to double our prize money in all departments, what or how much more can we do,” Muhammed said.
The winner of this year’s tournament will take home $2M cash and a two-year Kit sponsorship valued at US$25 000 along with replicas and trophies which rounded off their first prize money at $7M.
Second place too was boosted with the runners-up pocketing $1M in cash and $2M in kind to a total of $3M while the player voted Most Valuable Player (MVP) is set to ride off with a motorcycle and sporting equipment valued at US$1 500.

Alpha United/Ann’s Grove United
After Alpha United had excluded themselves from the tournament recently K&S went ahead and replaced them in the tournament with Ann’s Grove United but subsequently a ‘Clubs for Negotiations’ (CFN) committee was formed  by several of the participating clubs in the tournament and some issues were ironed out after meeting with the Organisors and Alpha United was reinstated.
However, it was said yesterday that given the fact the team (Ann’s Grove United) showed great interest and were prepared to play at the last minute, K&S has written to the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) to expand the tournament to 20 teams.
“We don’t want these brothers to feel bad because they were ready to play with us, so we have written to the GFF asking them to expand to 20 teams like we had last year, so now we just waiting on them to give the green light, then we’ll have Ann’s Grove and Netrockers of Linden,” said Muhammed.
The K&S official said that the fiasco has caused a major company to pull out of being part of the tournament this year – a loss calculated at over $2M. He explained that they met with the company, everything was signed and they were ready to be onboard after we told them that everything is okay but then again a lot of stuff was said in the media, so the next day after we met, they called and said that they are not going to be a part. We had already printed their names and everything on our flyers, ads etc, so yes, it has cost us.”
The 21st Edition of the Kashif and Shanghai Football tournament will kick off on December 15 at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence, with Riddim Squad facing Bakewell Buxton Stars in the opening clash and defending champions BK International Western Tigers coming up against Buxton United.