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Dec 12, 2021 Sports
Kaieteur News – Odinga Lumumba is a man of many hats; politician, businessman, and sports enthusiast, and it is the strongly held belief in some quarters that his contributions to Guyanese society are often overlooked, particularly with regard to local football. Perhaps this indifference can be linked to the fact that Lumumba, because of his blunt nature, never avails himself to anyone.
After graduating from the Colorado School of Mining, Lumumba returned home to contribute to nation building. A former athlete and lover of sports, he initially dabbled in boxing, and for a while managed the late Andrew Murray, who won the World Boxing Council FECARBOX welterweight title, World Boxing Association Fedelatin welterweight title, and Commonwealth welterweight title, and was a challenger for the World Boxing Association (WBA) World welterweight title.
Lumumba would also manage Anthony `The Pearl’ Andrews and was named the WBA Latin America Boxing Promoter of the Year in 1995.
However, it is in the realm of football where his sporting legacy is truly concretised. Lumumba’s major contribution to the development of local football commenced in 2004, when he became president of Alpha United Football Club.
Utilising his own resources, contacts, and influence, he set about the seemingly impossible task of converting the club into Guyana’s first professional football outfit, in a landscape filled with shortcomings.
These challenges included the lack of adequate training facilities, the high cost of ground rentals and their poor playing surfaces due to a lack of proper maintenance, the half-hearted commitment of players, the unavailability of players because of work demands, an inadequate supply of football gear, and the general lack of support from the Guyana Football Federation, most notably in the area of finance.
In striving to elevate the standard of performances by the club, Lumumba first ensured that the budding institution had all the necessary equipment in place for training at the highest possible level.
Next, he sought and acquired the services of outstanding players and coaches. The acquisition of overseas footballers was then next logical step in this progression, while the very expensive practice of paying monthly stipends, which is a staple of the professional environment, commenced.
Right on cue, the results quickly followed! During Lumumba’s reign as president, Alpha ‘The Hammer’ United dominated the local scene by capturing the National League Title on five occasions from 2009 to 2013.
Twice winners and three times runners-up in the Annual Kashif & Shanghai Football Tournament, Alpha United also snared the Mayor’s Cup, the GFF Super 8 Cup, the NAMILCO KO Tournament, and the President’s Cup tournament.
On the regional circuit, Alpha United represented Guyana at the CFU Inter Club Tournaments from 2009 to 2013, and in 2011, became the first local club to participate in the CONCACAF Champions League, after finishing third in the regional club tournament.
In the playoff for third place, ‘The Hammer’ beat the strong Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force unit on penalty kicks, following a 1-1 tie after extra time. In their first game in the CFU Champion League, they faced Herediano of Costa Rica.
ESPN’s first visit to Guyana was to provide coverage of a game between a Haitian club side and Alpha United at the National Stadium. Alpha was the first club to sign foreign players to compete in local tournaments and enjoyed the services of footballers from Brazil, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, Panama, St Kitts, St Vincent, Trinidad & Tobago, and the African continent. Two players from Panama would go on to wear the colours of their country.
It would be fair to say that Alpha United could be viewed as a paragon of enterprise and initiative… a passion and project, which changed the history of the local football landscape, and created the pathway for other institutions to implore a more progressive and professional ideology in what was effectively uncharted territory.
Lumumba’s success story on the field of play was a reflection of the possibilities that can be realised if investment and vision are in unison. The aforementioned exposé was the catalyst for his well-documented skirmishes and clashes with the Guyana Football Federation (GFF), especially during his tenure as president of the Georgetown Football Association (GFA).
Notably, his antagonistic approach to the GFF’s developmental scope for the discipline was rooted in the belief that little was being conceptualised to elevate the overall local standard, which needs to be seen as an industry and an environment of opportunity.
The contrast or juxtaposition of the aforementioned was easily observed and regarded, following the local and regional success of Alpha United, which operated in a semblance of a professional outfit.
Presently, the foresight of his words are observed and felt, as the demise of local football is reflected in the embarrassing recent performances of the national programmes against Caribbean opposition.
The contributing factor to this unwanted reality, he would argue in his typical gruff manner, was aided by the elimination of professional setups – Alpha United and Slingerz Football Club – from the Elite League, as well as the dismantling of the Kashif and Shanghai Tournament, following disagreements with the current GFF administration.
Speaking in his usual forthright manner, the Buxton native always maintained the putative assessment that a
national programme cannot be built and eventually sustained, without the competitive rigors and professional mindset of a national league, in which the estranged institutions should be included.
His overall premise is that a professional machination is required to uplift the standard of the local game and that the investment required in cultivating such an invention, is entrenched in the involvement of the corporate community and government, whose resources can be utilised in the modernisation of facilities inclusive of the introduction of artificial surfaces in each region.
No individual past or present, let alone politician, has contributed more to a discipline especially from a financial standpoint, than the Buxton native. It is against this backdrop that a formal acknowledgement of his incredible contribution to the development of football should be rendered.
After all, the current attempts to create an environment and ecosystem of commerce for the world’s largest sport is a direct byproduct of Lumumba’s intended and overall vision for its local existence.
Without Lumumba’s visionary approach, there would effectively be no Alpha United with its storied history, and similarly, the existence of Slingerz might have never been borne.
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” are the famous words once uttered by English novelist, George Orwell. That inconvenient certitude speaks to the character that is Odinga Lumumba, a man whose football legacy is often ignored or disregarded.
The societal detachment is rooted in his disposition of being misunderstood, and it is most apparent not in his political existence, but his sporting reality; in particular the beautiful game of football.
Perhaps, Odinga Lumumba, a football developer, whose contribution is surely missed in these times, and who had a great vision for the Alpha United Football Club and his country in the football arena, might consider returning to the fold.
Whichever hat, politician, businessman or sport enthusiast is ultimately selected or attributed to Lumumba’s eventual legacy by the contrasting masses, a ‘Football Legend’ is a justified, warranted, and unquestionable title for a man whose contributions are unmatched.
Salutations are in order for The Godfather of Guyana’s football.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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