THE Guyana Football Federation (GFF) yesterday held a press conference to address a number of issues and engage the media in discussion. Present at the head table was GFF President Wayne Forde, GFF Technical Director (TD) Ian Greenwood and Technical Officer Brian Joseph.

In his remarks, Forde reassured the media that “the GFF values and appreciate the contribution of the media to his administration; I believe the scrutiny is good for the sport and its development.”

However, he pointed out that it has been noticed a section of the media have focused on only one area of the GFF’s operations and pointed to an article that alleged that the Academy Training Centres (ATCs) have collapsed, this he opined is very unfortunate.

“The GFF and the executive committee have been very open about their actions and projects including our partnerships with FIFA, we have returned Guyana to full compliance with FIFA regulations, we will see the funding that was there for us now open to access. It is important that we emphasize that the level of activity that the GFF has been involved in for the last two and a half years is unprecedented,” the GFF boss said.

Meanwhile, TD Greenwood revealed that one of the biggest aspects in GFF’s focus is player population, adding “If we (Guyana) don’t have a big enough player pool to choose from it would be detrimental to development.”

The ATC is a nationwide programme and Greenwood explained that “we (GFF) have been extracting the top players from each of the ATCs in the various regions, the main role (of the ATC) is to bring the top players into the national side.”

He further noted that the GFF now has “CONCACAF trainers, something we never had before, we have licensed coaches, in the school and youth systems.”

“There has been massive improvement in the quality of the players, at every youth level we’ve had representation at the international level. We’re happy with what is going on, we have to stress though that this is a long term plan and there cannot be changes overnight,” Greenwood said.

The development of a crop of players over the next decade is also one of the main objectives of the Wayne Forde administration with the GFF’s main focus on the youth systems.