{"id":31969,"date":"2026-09-18T18:07:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:07:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/?p=31969"},"modified":"2026-09-18T18:07:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T22:07:34","slug":"gff-director-of-leagues-to-drive-elite-league-professionalisation-wayne-forde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/gff-director-of-leagues-to-drive-elite-league-professionalisation-wayne-forde\/","title":{"rendered":"GFF Director of Leagues to drive Elite League professionalisation &#8211; Wayne Forde"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-by Tyriq Clarke <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Guyana Football Federation is moving to accelerate the professionalization of its Elite League, with the recruitment of a Director of Leagues and Competitions nearing completion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking during a recent GFF Elite League discussion, President, Wayne Forde said the Federation has been working with FIFA on plans to professionalize the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;<strong>We\u2019ve been working for the better part of a year and a half, and this is probably, maybe an announcement with FIFA, putting together some plans to<\/strong> <strong>professionalize the league<\/strong>,&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2024, the GFF president said the Federation was targeting the establishment of a professional league within two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That target has not yet been achieved and according to Forde, the Federation has a little over a year, to move the process forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A major part of that plan will be the new Director of Leagues and Competitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>&#8220;We\u2019re just about to close the recruitment of a Director of Leagues and Competitions, and as soon as we have that person on board, the pace at which we\u2019re going to be advancing the professionalization of the league<\/strong> <strong>will be exponential<\/strong>,&#8221; he explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The GFF president acknowledged however that professionalizing the competition will require more than simply paying players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>&#8220;Most<\/strong> <strong>of our clubs don\u2019t have a home, and if we\u2019re going to tackle professional football, we need<\/strong> <strong>to fix that<\/strong>,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Forde also pointed to the lack of professional contracts among many Elite League players as another major concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He believes player compensation can be addressed relatively quickly but said infrastructure challenges will take more work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>-by Tyriq Clarke The Guyana Football Federation is moving to accelerate the professionalization of its Elite League, with the recruitment of a Director of Leagues and Competitions nearing completion. Speaking&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[361,1238,350,352],"tags":[488,1280,1279,370,1278,412,405],"class_list":["post-31969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-economy","category-community-development","category-news","category-sports","tag-488","tag-elite-league","tag-gff","tag-guyana","tag-guyana-football-federation","tag-ncn-guyana","tag-ncn-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31975,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31969\/revisions\/31975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncnguyana.com\/2023\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}