Latest update April 25th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 20, 2012 Sports
Over the years the Kashif and Shanghai football extravaganza has been an integral part of local sports activity and no one could have faulted the shrewd administrative skills exhibited by the organizers in fashioning a top class tournament worthy of its salt. However, while acute administrative skill is a very important attribute towards the success of such initiatives, one cannot ignore the input of the corporate community towards the sustenance of these tournaments.
The K&S tournament came into existence in 1990 and was merely a scrubby between four Linden based football teams with one of them carting off the spoils after engaging in a round robin format styled competition. Subsequently, in the 1993/94 edition Camptown FC walked off with the spoils in what marked the first year that a team outside of the Linden community would have done so. It was not long before the football fever ignited and every club worth its salt booked its name for participation in the tournament.
Apart from the entertainment of the championships, the Linden business community netted huge profits when a few preliminary games and the grand finals were staged in that community since it attracted a wide cross section of support. During those days it was extremely difficult booking a room in hotels and guest houses in the Upper Demerara town since they were all gobbled well in advance of ‘D Day’ with members of the business community smiling from ear to ear.
Banks DIH could pride itself as the company that took up the mantle and despite meager returns pumped $4,000 into the tournament which served then as the top prize. Though it may seem measly to the prize money on offer these days, that sum was regarded as princely and even so, it was the beverage giants that bit the bullet which is extremely commendable.
Several years after its inauguration, the crowds grew and many were deprived of comfortable accommodation to view the matches. Further, the venue became easily soggy with just a sprinkling of rain forcing the organizers to ponder on shifting the finals to the National Stadium, Providence. Eventually, this decision came into effect in 2008 when the K&S duo shifted the finals to the more spacious Providence venue. The Lindeners were distraught since that decision curtailed the economic advantages garnered from the finals in that town.
For their part, the organizers after weighing the economic benefits coupled with the improved seating capacity which eventually served as the catalyst to the finals having a new home at the East Bank facility.
The nation watched in awe as the organizers marketed their product to astronomical proportions and in 2009 activities reached the highest of high after the legendary football star, King Pele, arrived as the guest of honour in the 20th edition. The K&S duo intimated that the Pele visit was a costly endeavour but reasoned that the benefits would have been accrued later on. Their words proved to be prophetic since the tournament spiraled into the international rankings and the succeeding years witnessed an influx of corporate support with many of the patrons unable to find a seat in the packed stadium.
We need not regurgitate the details of 2011 that witnessed the tournament taking such a beating that the final which for years have attracted thousands of screaming fans being reduced to such a farce that one could have counted the spectators ‘on their one hand’ to borrow a favourite Guyanese parlance.
Even as K&S experienced debilitating fortunes, the Georgetown Football League tournament, with an astronomical first prize of more than three million dollars, was teeming with fans that responded to a political boycott and stayed away from the East Bank spectacle.
The disparity of the after tournament prognosis of both events was glaring and while one set of organizers trooped to the bank with a large smile the other group slunk in a corner to lick its wounds. Those events are now confined to sports history but there are pressing questions that still has to be answered and similar issues to be addressed. For a start the K&S duo must huddle with relevant advisors and determine what had gone wrong and how it could be fixed. Yes, there was a political overtone to the boycott but largely, many are of the opinion that K&S should increase their first place prize as a start. Secondly, their detractors are claiming that while the team has been raking in millions on a yearly basis they have failed to return similar favours to the clubs and society as a whole.
I confronted the K&S principals with this view and they said that it is far from the truth. Naturally, after introspection, the duo admits that they had erred in mixing politics and sports and has since committed to adopt parallel perspectives in the future. Responding to the public’s concerns pertaining to them not giving back to society, the duo reeled off a plethora of community oriented projects that they had undertaken in the past. They said that their Muslim beliefs have precluded them from advertising their good works since ‘Allah has instructed that one’s right hand should be unaware of what the left hand has done’.
One must give the benefit of the doubt to the duo but what is puzzling is the stony silence retained by the purported numbers that has benefited from such chivalry. One suspects that these benefactors are reluctant to publicize their association with the beleaguered group for fear of adverse results. One cannot fault these people/entities when one considers the present political climate. Naturally, self preservation takes precedence over advocacy.
When K&S commenced, they were a speck on the local sports map. Undaunted, they persevered and managed to convert a small, insignificant, four team scrubby into an international spectacle. They had reached an unprecedented high but one tiny faux pas has plunged them to an unbelievable low. It is now time for frank, honest, even brutal introspection. The group must now analyze their error and fix it pronto. No one said it is going to be easy but one thing is for sure, it took indomitable preserve to convert the tournament to one of unimaginable proportions but they did it. It is now time to bend their backs and toil away to regain what has been lost.
Whatever comes out of their closed door interaction must reflect common sense and to a large extent, honest analysis. Only then will the group rest assured that they could resume the planning and installing the initiatives and innovations that has propelled K&S tournament to the heights it has achieved.
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