THE Guyana Football Federation (GFF) is hopeful that government will give the go-ahead for its GOAL project to be shifted from the current location at Orangestein on the East Bank of Essequibo to Leonora, West Coast Demerara.In an exclusive interview with Chronicle Sport on Tuesday, GFF president Christopher Matthias said his Federation has been having discussions with the Ministry of Sport regarding the acquisition of 11 acres of land, north of the synthetic track that is currently under construction at Leonora.

According to Matthias, the discussions have been favourable and once the Federation gets the green light, it will construct a three storied building along with two training pitches on the 11-acre plot of land.
The building which Matthias said would be a Technical Centre would have a conference room, rooms for national and visiting teams, a kitchen, dining room and Gym among other things.
Matthias said FIFA’s Development Officer with responsibility for Guyana, Jamaican Howard McIntosh, was here last year and inspected the sites at both Orangestein and Leonora and is excited about the shift to the Leonora site.
In May 2009, then president of the GFF Colin Klass revealed that the world governing body for football FIFA had approved Guyana’s request for the long-awaited GOAL Project.
According to Klass, Guyana was granted approval in May that year and had the directive to tender for contractual work to begin, at Orangestein, East Bank Essequibo.
According to Klass then, the GOAL Project was expected to contain dormitories, training facility, a ground, fencing and kitchen facilities in the initial phase and was to be constructed in a manner that will accommodate future developments such as floodlights etc.
In March last year, then acting president of the GFF Franklyn Wilson informed that the federation received another US$500 000 from FIFA that will go towards the completion of a training facility.
Wilson had said that a meeting held on March 18 in Zurich and which he attended, “Guyana secured the grant among other recipients under the GOAL Project and in another two weeks the Federation will be advertising for the retendering of the Project.”
Wilson had also revealed that the world governing body for football has also increased the Funding from US$400 000 to US$500 000 and that already US$130 000 had been spent on the project from the initial US$400 000 delivered to the GFF.
Wilson had added that due to dissatisfaction with the works of the contractor the GFF had no other choice but to bring a halt to all works at the site at Orangestein.
In September last year, McIntosh said FIFA will continue to support Guyana’s GOAL Project.
“The performance in relation to the goal programme, which was a programme put together as far back as 1999 by FIFA with some specific objectives that is to get each of the 209 associations to first and foremost have a head office and second a technical centre.” McIntosh had said.
“In the case of Guyana we have had a goal project that has been around for that amount of time; unfortunately in the Caribbean that has been the performance record – very poor,” McIntosh had noted.
Written By Michael DaSilva