THE Guyana Football Federation (GFF) yesterday announced the appointment of Dr Ivan Joseph as head coach of the National Senior Women’s team with immediate effect and for a period of one year.

According to the GFF, Dr Joseph, a Guyanese living in Canada, currently serves as the Director of Athletics at Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and has over 20 years of experience in high performance coaching and athletics administration.

When asked to comment on his appointment Dr Joseph said he is looking to build a competitive team and realise the potential of the female footballers, both on and off the field.

“I am honoured to serve Guyana, the country of my birth, by supporting the Senior Women’s National Team as they look to re-emerge on the world stage. It is my hope to assist the Federation in building the grassroots level of football across the country that will help empower young girls to achieve success on and off the pitch. I see a lot of potential with the Lady Jaguars programme,” Dr Joseph said.

The newly-installed coach said his first goal is “to assess our current talent and find out where our strengths are as a programme then build a training programme that can serve our needs.

“We have many women, in and out of the country, who are capable of playing at a high level and have been waiting for the opportunity to compete at the world stage. My mandate is to build a team that can compete and put ourselves in a position to inspire a nation.”

A release from the GFF stated that Dr Joseph is a six-time Coach-of-the-Year, having led Graceland University (Lamoni, Iowa, USA) and Ryerson University Men’s and Women’s Teams to national rankings. He led his Graceland University team to a National Championship.

He was also awarded National Coach-of-the-Year and the African Canadian Award of Excellence in Sport for his achievements.

Dr Joseph’s international experience includes serving as a high-performance consultant with Canada Basketball helping both their Senior Men’s Team and U-20 Team at World Qualifiers, as well as Head Coach of Canada’s Women’s Soccer Team at Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM) – the world’s largest military games outside of the Olympics.

A sought-after speaker on High Performance Culture and Team Cohesion, Dr. Joseph has worked with many major organisations in the business world such as Digicel, Samsung, Sanofi Pasteur, Eli Lily, to improve organisational culture and leadership.

Dr Joseph’s qualifications include USSF ‘A’ Licence, NSCAA Advanced National Diploma and a PhD in Sport Psychology.

The newly-appointed coach is scheduled to visit Guyana from April 13 and will meet with the GFF president Wayne Forde and the executive committee, Technical Director Ian Greenwood and his technical department to identify areas for future collaboration.