YOU would like to think there is little truth in the rumour doing the rounds. The Guernsey Football Association are considering compressing the domestic season into just four months for fear of players suffering in the fierce heat that, in an increasingly unpredictable world of weather September, October, March and April, could descend on us in the future.
But as the will we/won’t we go to Rhodes farce reaches pantomime proportions, perhaps we shouldn’t rule that one out after all.
Even the Eskimos are going to Greece.
But seriously folks . . .
The main problem with the GFA board is that in the very first place it ignored the major and most important point of its constitution: ‘to encourage and foster football in Guernsey’.
If it had heeded that point all those months ago, it could have come to only one conclusion.
As the players wanted to go - only one of the 30 asked said no at that time - they had to do what’s best for the players. GO.
And that’s what football is about… players. Not committees.
It is the footballers who kick the ball about.
It’s the players who score the goals, make sacrifices to get fit and pay for their hobby.
Not the men in suits who are there, first and foremost, to serve the players and make it possible for them to play.
To this observer, it strikes me that too many of the GFA executive - and not all of them - have put
themselves first, instead of the
players.
Their touchline fears have
over-ridden the views of those who really count, the ones who will pull on a shirt and go for the glory in the name of sport and their island, not the committee which are rapidly losing the respect of the players.
As long as the GFA could afford (pounds and pence) to send a team to Rhodes, they had to say yes.
All other considerations - heat, physical safety, a punishing tournament schedule, nervous insurers etc. - were hurdles to clear AFTER the yes decision had been made, not before.
Article posted on 30th September, 2006 - 12.00am
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