THE Guyana Football Federation says that the citizenship dilemma that caused four key players to be ineligible to represent Guyana at Wednesday’s World Cup Qualifier against St Vincent and the Grenadines was not due to late applications. This was revealed by director of Marketing and Communications of the Guyana Football Federation, Rawle Toney, on Wednesday. Toney noted that the election period was a main factor in the problem.
“The public is of the opinion that, ok fine, we know these players had to come and play, why we didn’t apply earlier. That’s not the case. It’s just that everything happened during a period when Guyana was at a standstill preparing for general and regional elections. After elections had been completed we still had to wait for results. You had to wait for the appointment of relevant persons to be put in place to deal with whatever specific areas needed to be addressed.”
Toney, however, understood the predicament that the Government of Guyana is in and says that the federation as well understands due process.
“What we would like the public to understand is the fact that the administration (Government of Guyana) is relatively new and as such anything that the officials are doing, they would like to ensure that they are following or doing so within the confines of the Laws of Guyana. They are trying to be thorough.”
Meanwhile, Assistant General Secretary of the Federation, Deidre Davis, also alluded to thoroughness on the part of the government and accepted that these things happen. “I don’t believe that it’s an issue of early application. I think it’s a matter of thoroughness on the government’s part.
We, as a federation, must appreciate that. While for us it’s a bit of a difficult position to be in, we must understand that we must appreciate their need for thoroughness.”
The Normalisation Committee of the federation is set to meet with the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, in the coming days to iron out the issues ahead of Sunday’s return leg. Members of the GFF are optimistic that those issues will be resolved in a timely manner
The 4 players, Neil Danns, Matthew Briggs, Marcel Barrington and Sam Cox, all England-based, had to be replaced at the last minute by Chris Camacho, Pernell Schultz and Kevin Beaton after the issues of citizenship.
Following consultation with Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, and Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, it was recommended that the matter be looked at by the Attorney General.
The players qualify to represent Guyana through their grandparents; something that is not unique in sport or to Guyana.

By Stephan Sookram