Newly appointed Technical Director of Guyana’s football Claude Bolton, believes that the future is bright for the sport in the country, if only all stakeholders work together.

Bolton, born to Guyanese parents in Toronto Canada, says that while he understands Guyana’s position, having been a regional powerhouse to now minnows of the game, it’s not a unique case when compared to the rest of their regional counterparts.

“I think our situation is not unique in the world, but in CONCACAF, the Caribbean Nations on the whole; I just did a guest stint in St Vincent; I think many of the challenges exist is similar, different kind of different associations throughout the year but what is unique, Guyana has more potential than a lot of those nations that seek these challenges,” Bolton said.

“We do have resources and connection that we can draw but again, no Technical Director, no coach coming in here with a Holy Grail, this is about how can we build a team with the resources we have in Guyana, how can we tap into resources abroad and the different footballing experts to say how do we put that together.
What we have been able to accomplish in such a very short time when Mr. Shabazz (Jamaal) was the head coach, only gave us a glimpse of where we can go with sustainable development”.

Boasting an impressive résumé, glittered with some of the game’s highest level of certification a coach can ask for, Bolton outshined seven other applicants to land the job in the country he’s more than familiar with.

But coming into the position, the Canadian is aware that he will have to hit the ground running since Guyana will be facing Barbados in an International Friendly on February 1 and followed by both the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers and 2016 Olympic Qualifiers.

However, Bolton restrained from making any pronouncement on the National team for any of the encounters, only resorting to stating that all systems will be made when the National Coach is announced on Monday.

“The Barbados game will be addressed fully when we have the coach in place, then we can sit down and collectively say what do we think the strength, the aims and objectives that the game itself should be, as well as which pieces are going to help us,” said Bolton.

Asked if Guyana will be looking abroad, just like in the past, to help their chances of advancing in the sport, Bolton treated the question as if it was a rhetorical one; mentioning, “any nation, going to World Cup use foreign base players and they use them for two reasons; one, they are accomplished in a particular training regiment which makes their different contribution to the team at a great rate, second, it shows local players the level they have to be at both physically, mentally, the speed of thought and the speed of play so certainly they should be considered in any team”.

“Example, as great as America is and within CONCACAF, they are drawing their foreign players and they (America) have great development but they are still drawing Americans who have parentage abroad”.

Though outlining that Guyana will have a long term approach to development, Bolton said that he’s going to use 2015, “to assess and analyse and then have that programme in place with long term goals.
Over this first month, we have to put something in place to say how we will deal with those protocols now, so within a month, we should be able to deliver something that would say this is how we’re going to approach this.
But by mid-year or at the end of the year, when those new objectives comes in place, it’s with them we want to say here are the goals and objectives for the next three years.”
Written By Rawle Toney