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Jamaal Shabazz as Guyana's head coach
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It was my intention to stay out of Guyana’s football business, especially seeing that football has reached to so much strife, chaos and warfare, after what the Golden Jaguars has done to put Guyana on the world football map.

But how could I stay out when Mr. Eton Moses keeps trying to cast aspersions on my salary and my integrity? And moreso when in my homeland, Trinidad and Tobago and throughout the CONCACAF region, Jamaal Shabazz is seen as Guyanese.

In fact my wives and children see my strange attachment to Guyana as an addiction based on something “all yuh give meh to eat”.

But skip the small talk because Mr. Eton Moses has brought me back into Guyana’s football with his repeated pronouncements about my salary and assertions that under my tenure no “development took place in Guyana’s football.”

Well here goes Mr. Moses fasten your seatbelt and observe the no smoking sign because we are about to take off.

First, my agent demanded US$10,000 not US$6500 for my salary after I led Guyana to the semi final round of the FIFA World Cup in 2011, at the expense of Trinidad and Tobago. And I see myself worth even more than that because I do not share the slave mentality of most Caribbean coaches that we have to eat crumbs.

So you see Eton when Mr. Matthias sought to ridicule me by leaking my earnings to you and others he did not know that I am indeed happy. Because I want coaches in Guyana as I have always told them to value themselves and professionals and get off their hands and knees begging for pittance.

Whether I come from Buxton or Bel Air Mr. Moses I value my worth as a professional not just in the Caribbean but as a football technician in the world. I make no apologies for salary earned while working for Guyana’s football and will now show you our work.

I say our, because Guyana is still stuck in the one man autocratic style of leadership where leaders forget they are servants of a God and strive to demigod status. Football is about unity, bringing people together, working as a team and exciting and uniting a nation.

I had two stints for Guyana from 2005 to 2008 and then again from August 2011 to October 2012. On both occasions Aubrey “Shanghai” Major and Kashif Muhammad persuaded me to come to Guyana and on both occasions my main Assistant was Coach Wayne Wiggy Dover.

The statistics will prove that after a tremendous unbeaten run over some 13 friendly international matches, Guyana qualified for the CFU finals, was awarded the best mover in the FIFA rankings and gained the respect of our peers in the region.

Guyana played unbeaten in the first group with 5-0 wins against Suriname and Curaçao and a 1-0 win against Grenada. Then at the semi final stage we destroyed Antigua & Barbuda, Dominican Republic and Guadeloupe on home soil.

However, at the finals a 2-0 loss to St. Vincent, a 4-2 win against Guadeloupe and a 0-0 draw with Cuba saw us miss out on advancing to the final four by one goal less. At that point we had succeeded in taking the arrow head out of the dust and in so doing excited and united the hearts of the Guyana people similar to the Declaration of Independence on May 26 1966.

In the subsequent FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, we lost 2-0 and 3-1 to Suriname and saw our World Cup hopes dashed for 2010. I did not run and hide or make frivolous excuses, I took responsibility and as the GT people turned against me I took my Georgie bundle and humbly returned home to Trinidad albeit in tears.

During that period from my salary of around US$3000.00 a month I paid the monthly salary for a coach of Georgetown club Santos FC. I subsidized the salaries of members of staff. I bought training and match uniforms for the Guyana National team, funded training camps out my pockets and begged, borrowed and stole to ensure that a professional environment was created for the national programme. Let Mr. Matthias ask his friend and my friend Mark Phillips he will validate what I am saying.

During the period 2005 to 2009 I was paying 14 Guyana national team players in my club Caledonia AIA and helped to ensure at least 23 Guyana national team players were playing in the TT Pro League and receiving salaries, which at the time they could not get in Guyana.

Whether it was a fan, a journalist, a coach, administrator or player whenever a GT comes calling, I feel honored to help because I don’t like GT I love Guyana meh brother.

We got Guyanese living abroad like Colin Baker, Sheridan David, Faizal Khan and Garth Nelson just to name a few, to dip into their pockets and intellectual capacities to help. Thus, seeking to re-connect Guyana with Guyanese all over the world.

We introduced into the National programme players like JP Rodrigues, Christopher Nurse, the Newton Brothers, the Cort brothers and several players born to Guyanese parents living in North America and England.

You see unlike those local Guyanese coaches who are insecure about working with top professionals, coach Dover and I agreed with Marcus Garvey. Guyana for Guyanese, home or abroad.

Those who left should not be denied an opportunity for their children to represent this Blessed land because they migrated in search of a better life for their family. They still love their country.

So let’s talk about development, is it not development to create a professional environment for players to move from amateurs to professionals? Is it not development when you help in the growth and development of someone like Wayne Dover who has been oppressed in his country and is now one of the best coaches in the Caribbean?

But let’s quickly move forward to 2011 in our second stint Coach Dover and our Staff did the impossible- we beat Trinidad and Tobago on the 11 of November 2011 amidst a sea of yellow and golden people of Guyana at Providence. Were you there Mr. Moses or were you at that time counting my hard earned money?

I was one of two persons who negotiated a TV rights deal that brought One Million US dollars into the coffers of the Guyana Football Federation when the offer on the table was a measly US$30,000.

I petitioned the GFF to stand up to CFU to allow us to negotiate our own TV rights deal at a time when only Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago were allowed to do that. You guys want to keep Guyana football as a little cake stall, when football is a billion dollar industry.

My brother our vision was and still is big times or no times. Since 2012 Guyana has not played a single friendly international this is after Colin Baker and myself negotiated games for Guyana against opposition like Guatemala, Bolivia, Jamaica and Columbia. Countries better than us who could help us develop just by us being on the same stage.

Amidst opposition internally the then GFF hierarchy agreed to our proposal to develop a two tier national team system as practiced by the best countries in the world. Where we had the national team made up of the best local and foreign based players and a developmental team made up of young mainly but not elusively locally based talent.

We travelled to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Tobago, Grenada and St. Vincent with our development team. Out of that team we had Trayon Bobb and Daniel Wilson go off on stints to Europe, yes Europe and Bobb is now playing professionally in Lithuania. We were able to expose players like Colin Nelson, the deceased Colin Edwards, Pernel Schultz, Brandon Beresford, Jermaine Grandison, Clive Nobrega, Sheldon Holder and several other youths that can now carry the Guyana flag with quality in the senior team.

Development is not just lectures and training kids; it is also about exposing young players to regional and international opposition and opening doors for them to become professionals.

But tomorrow, God willing I will highlight some of the real problems and possible solutions because at the end of the day it is better for me to light a candle for Guyana than curse the darkness that has currently engulfed our blessed land.