IN the wake of the present football saga in Guyana and more so in Georgetown, affiliated clubs to the Georgetown Football Association (GFA), along with the withdrawal of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) team by their Chief of Staff Commodore Gary Best, have asked the GFA executives for the resignation of its president Lt Com. Vernon Burnett. Burnett who served in the IMC of last year’s GFA under Gordon Gilhuys, seeded the elections by default to win the presidency of the GDF team over Captain Murray and proceeded to the GFA election unchallenged to the presidency.
During their eight-month life, the GFA faced a number of dilemmas in football, such as their High Court battle with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and clubs playing in the present Kashif and Shanghai tournament.
More controversy reigned, following the start of the GFA/Banks Beer knockout tournament which is being played parallel to the Kashif and Shanghai tournament, in which one player has so far played for two different clubs in both tournaments.
With that in mind, the GFA under Burnett’s leadership has been questioned since no stern position has been taken on either of these matters.
Burnett, who heads the GDF’s delegation to the GFA General Council, has failed to properly command his troops and develop the team to become the top club in Guyana, based on the resources available and overseas assistance being extended.
Over the past five years, they have benefited from exchange programmes of technical expertise from football nation Brazil in the form of physical training and coaching.
During this period two physical training instructors and three coaches have worked with the GDF team, who have been in training twice daily and members relieved from military duties are now being deprived of their opportunities because of poor administration and politics in football today in Guyana.
GDF were expected to play last Sunday and 24 hours before they did so, Commodore Best issued a release debarring them from the competition, and there has been no further word, surrounding the withdrawal of the team.
GDF represented Guyana at the Inter-club Championship, CONCACAF Club and have also participated in the GFF Win in CONCACAF with CONCACAF tournament and the GT&T Cellink Premier Football Leagues where they were runners-up to Alpha United. They won the GFL Presidents Cup in 2006 among other tournaments played in Guyana.
Chronicle Sport spoke with executives and General Council members, who asked to remain anonymous, who said, “In the history of football in Georgetown, this has been the poorest leadership in years.”
“Not taking anything away, but the young army officer lacks command and developmental vision,” lamented one of the members.
“We thought that he would have brought some new dynamics and developmental plans and programmes to Georgetown football; and over the period of his leadership we toiled along with him hoping that we would have seen a change.
“But the constitution is what governs football from FIFA to the club level and if an executive does not take time to understand the operations, execution and guidelines with the framework of those constitutions, then the administration of football cannot be done effectively and that has happened to Burnett and his crew,” cited another.
With all this and more which the affiliates say they would not mention at this time, some say that Burnett should be a man of dignity and his resignation should be forthcoming.
Amidst all this drama, action in the GFA/Banks Beer Soccer Festival continues this Sunday at the Georgetown Football Club ground with another exciting double-header.