By Ras Wadada

IN another dramatic twist in the ongoing saga of the ‘Beautiful Game’ here in Guyana, Champion Club Slingerz FC and runners-up Alpha United, as well as Pele FC and GFC announced, yesterday, that they will not heed the recent announcement of the GFF on the start of the Stag Elite league set for November 13th at the Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) ground,and as such will not participate unless a request for an arbitration is answered.Yesterday, the top officials of the four clubs held a Press Conference at Sambora Communications in West Ruimveldt,where they all stated that their main objection to participation has to do with the change,which now includes two additional teams.
The Club Officials all felt that the process the GFF used to arrive at their decision to expand the League has breached a contractual agreement that was signed by the then NC and the eight Elite Clubs in the inaugural season for an initial two year period.
The Officials also dismissed the pronouncements of the President of the GFF,Wayne Forde,that there was consultation and that 97 percent of the changes for season-two were recommendations of the Elite Clubs. The officials added that this is misleading and deceptive.
Slingerz FC has already sent a correspondence to the GFF indicating their withdrawal from the upcoming Elite League and yesterday, General Manager Colin Aaron told the Media that all 8 Elite Clubs signed the document concerning the inaugural Elite League, “ Mr Forde signed so it is strange now that Mr Forde and Daniel of Conquerors are saying they have never signed anything than some other document… that is lying blatantly, that is lying blatantly”, emphasized Aaron.
“The parent body is showing total disregard and disrespect to the children. Why? We have sent a letter to the president(of GFF) asking for arbitration…I read in the newspapers that the same president said that he don’t see any need to engage in mediation. The Federation cannot make pronouncement on any dispute with its members.
“To change the membership of the Federation would require the Congress;the Executive Committee cannot change the membership. Only the Congress could admit, suspend or expel. Now they have decided to expand the League to ten teams”, Aaron stated.
President of Alpha United, Odinga Lumumba,in his address questioned the expansion and called it hand-picking.
“Why is it for the 2nd year coming up you suddenly want to disrupt the formula and bring in two clubs. This looks like they sure give you two votes, this is not football, this is Politics because if it is football you will go through a process to identify two teams…you can pull 12 teams together and in two to three weeks have a short tournament and select the top two teams…but this is not the case…it is obvious they want to hand-pick two people to get two votes and this is bad for the process and bad for the leadership. There is instability in the organization,” Lumumba suggested.
“We wrote a letter where we asked for a meeting to hold a consultation session to look at the way forward–we outlined all the issues–that letter has never been responded to and that meeting has never been granted.
Recently,we wrote another letter where we stated we are willing to go to arbitration…they have not answered and have publicly rejected that so what choice do we have…Alpha United is not prepared to participate in the tournament under those conditions. I think we should not play football this year, it’s too late;we should spend these next two months trying to get ourselves organized by trying to bring unity to the football, try to come to the decision making process instead of trying to be bullies. Let us try to resolve this matter, see how we can work together,” Lumumba recommended.
General Secretary of Georgetown Football Club, Faizal Khan,was very brief in his remarks.
“Nobody here at this table is opposed to the expansion of the League,however,it is the process in which it has happened, the massive losses to teams and players still owed millions. If we are serious about creating employment concerning this league and turning it into a professional League,we have to act professionally in every step of the way… making high-handed decisions without democratic consultation isn’t the way to go in my view”, Khan stated.
President of the Pele FC, Robbie Rambarran,also lashed out at the expansion and the procedure, “When you look at it from a financial perspective, when you look at it from a football perspective, I don’t see why they want to change the rules, I don’t see why they want to include these two additional teams,because logically it does not make any sense to us. All that we are saying here is that if we were involved in that process we could have put this on the table,but that is not the approach;the approach was a complete high-handedness.
“The executive of Pele met and we said that we are not going to take part in this tournament unless the process goes to arbitration and we all come out having a mutual agreement.”
At the end, Aaron stated that the four clubs are also calling on the GFF’s president ‘to produce any document where FIFA or CONCACAF told them to go ahead and start the league’. Arron promised that should such a document surface then the clubs will participate.