… explains block of financial support

THE Guyana Football Federation (GFF) yesterday stated that the works on the long-awaited ‘FIFA Forward Programme’ (formerly known as FIFA Goal Project) at Providence, will commence by the end of September after finally getting the confirmation of the lease of the land earmarked for the facility and subsequent approval by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) in June 2017.
During the tenure of the Clinton Urling-led Normalisation Committee (NC), the GFF on May 9, 2015, signed a 30-year lease with the Eccles/Ramsburg Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) for the 8.5-acre Providence Community Centre ground on the East Bank of Demerara, but in an exclusive comment, GFF president Wayne Forde explained that lease was deemed illegal.
In a statement, the GFF said when the Wayne Forde-led Executive Committee took stewardship of the game’s local governing body following the NC, it was the general feeling that the groundwork to activate the construction of the centre was established, but, this was far from reality.
It was discovered that the lease for the land identified had no legal standing and, in fact, necessitated several rounds of negotiation by the GFF and the involvement of the Honorable Minister of Communities (Ronald Bulkan) on May 16, 2017 to finalise.
This, the GFF explained, resulted in crucial delays which affected the commencement of the project since the final approval from FIFA was dependent on confirmation of all related documents.
“Understand that FIFA wanted verification of the number of things as we prepared to proceed, and that’s when we found out a couple of things that we had to deal with, like the legality of the land and so on, before we move ahead. But we’re grateful that we were able to meet those demands,” Forde told Chronicle sport yesterday.
According to him, the group under which the NC made the deal for the land was an interim committee, but the Eccles/Ramsburg NDC now were already questioning the validity of the deal and were also ready to file an injunction on the GFF if they had moved ahead with the construction of the facility under the previous lease agreement.
However, Urling, reaching out to Chronicle Sport, stated, “Both the NDC and Minister of Local Government at the time signed off on Providence Agreement … agreement vetted by both GFF Attorney Juman-Yassin and the Attorney General of Guyana at the time Anil Nandlall.”

This will be the first and major state-of-the-art football facility, which will seek to produce, among others, consistent levels of highly competitive and exciting football, that is a force to be reckoned with regionally and on the international scene.
The facility will cater for football development among both males and females and will be the focal point for football activity at all levels of the game.
Construction of the artificial turf will be done by Greenfields, a manufacturer of artificial turfs, in phases and is scheduled to be completed January month-end in 2018. Following this, the accompanying amenities will be constructed.
Meanwhile the GFF, in a release, also took aim to the Normalisation Committee, “It is no secret that the NC under Clinton Urling, during their relatively short tenure, received FIFA funding totalling almost US$1M which enabled them to discharge their mandate.”
The GFF said that following a FIFA audit of the 2015 accounts which was conducted by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) following the departure of the NC, countless red flags were raised, which resulted in FIFA formally informing the Wayne Forde’s Executive Committee on October 10, 2016 of the decision of the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee to “block funding to the Football Federation of Guyana”.
The effect of the decision of the Audit and Compliance Committee, the GFF said, meant that the Executive Committee had no access to the necessary funds to finance their operations and to support the development needs of the players, officials and members of the GFF. Additionally, this also meant that the GFF was unable to access and benefit from the increase FORWARD funding programme.
To date, this situation has had an extremely negative effect on the operations of the GFF, severely affecting the institution’s relationship with its members and suppliers.
Over the past months, the Executive Committee has undertaken a complete overall of the institution’s financial operation, resulting in major systems and personnel changes. Consequently, the GFF has been approved for “conditional funding” targeting essential operations and preapproved projects and programmes.
However, the Executive Committee is working assiduously to streamline every aspect of its Finance operation and internal procedures in order to meet and exceed the conditions laid out by FIFA’s Audit and Compliance Committee.