Normalisation Committee in place but tournament still in limbo
… despite verbal commitment from Urling

DESPITE the presence of the FIFA-installed Normalisation Committee and even as verbal commitment from that body’s chairman Clinton Urling, the commencement of the 25th Kashif and Shanghai Football Extravaganza, which will incorporate all 69 first division teams in Guyana, is in limbo.The Normalisation Committee was ordered by Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) Head of Member Associations, Premo Cavaro, and CONCACAF Director of Legal Affairs, Marco Leal, and will run Guyana’s football until September 2015.
Prior to such a welcome announcement, the K&S Organisation had submitted to Christopher Matthias, the ousted president of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), their intentions to organise the annual year end tournament, for which they were given certain requirements that needed to be fulfilled.
Having met those requirements and, in an informal meeting with Urling, the K&S Organisation was given the green light to commence the tournament for the 25th successive year amid several hiccups along the way, hence they disclosed their plans for another successful tournament two weeks ago to the media.
Plans included the hosting of a category called ‘The Knockout’, which will involve all 69 playing first division teams from sub-associations across Guyana who are affiliated to the GFF.
“We, at the K&S Organisation would be funding the playing of this knockout tournament, which will involve all the teams from all the sub-associations, which are Georgetown (16), Linden (13), West Demerara (12), East Bank and East Coast (8 each), Berbice (7) and Bartica (5) and which kicks off on November 14.
From this tournament, the best 8 teams out of Georgetown, 2 each from Linden, West Demerara and East Bank, 3 from East Coast and one from Berbice with an alternate also coming from Linden will advance to the actual tournament which gets under way on December 14 with the Crème de la Crop,” said Kashif Muhammad co-director of the K&S Organisation.
Proceeds from matches contested in ‘The Knockout’ will go towards the sub-association in which the game was hosted. The K&S Organisation will provide the prize for the top three finishers of this stage of the tournament, giving teams the right to battle for supremacy.
According to an official within the K&S Organisation who chose to remain anonymous to Chronicle Sport yesterday, the treatment being meted out to his body is nothing else but vindictive and it needs to stop sometime or the other.
“Upon his elevation to the chairmanship of the Normalisation Committee, Mr Urling told us verbally that our tournament would be played, as he wishes to see football in Guyana return to the days of yore where teams battled hard for supremacy, while places on the Golden Jaguars were up for grabs.
In addition to that, we got the okay from the associations who are affiliated to the GFF. One of the criteria that was outlined to us by the-then Christopher Matthias-led GFF and which we were told to undergo by the Normalisation Committee as well; with all 69 clubs welcoming the return of the tournament and applauding the new ideas we had in mind,” said the official.
“However, despite going through all this after the verbal commitment and even though we gave the Normalisation Committee an extra week for our starting date, pushing back from this weekend (November 14), we were astonished to hear that we may not be allowed to host our tournament.
Why this is so? Because an association expresses its desire to host a tournament at the same time and one that involves only teams within its jurisdiction, which means a national tournament with the magnitude of our tournament is of no meaning to even the Normalisation Committee but the Association’s tournament is of utmost importance, hence I say vindictiveness,” said the official.
“Really and truly, it is heartrending to know that a national tournament that is being looked forward to earnestly by some Associations who had stood to gain and even clubs under their affiliation, can be given a push to the back burner for a tournament which will only involve clubs within one Association.
“Therefore I am tempted to ask, ‘Does Mr. Urling really wish to see football and its development being placed back to the days of yore when we had players of the calibre of Anthony Stanton, Randolph ‘Blackhead’ Jerome and Collie ‘Hitman’ Hercules battling it out on the field or he just needs to see the same old players doing battle among themselves?’
As I have said before, the K&S tournament holds 80% responsibility for the rise of the Golden Jaguars into the FIFA rankings and unless we do something about the mediocre tournaments that are trumping up only for financial gains, our football will go further than the doldrums it is in, with or without the Normalisation Committee.

(By Calvin Roberts)