GFF ink 4-year contract with Englishman, Ian Greenwood

Oct 14, 2016, Sports, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....shman-ian-greenwood/

New TD to focus on Youth Development

Thirty-one year-old Englishman Ian Greenwood is the new Technical Director (TD) of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and has been given a four-year contract by the Wayne Forde led administration.

Greenwood is an UEFA-Qualified Professional Football Coach, with over 10 years of coaching/management experience at various levels of the sport including the U-14, 15, 16, 18 and U-21 teams at Leeds United.
In his career he has functioned as a Development Coach, Head Coach and Academy Coach for a number of English Football Clubs including Huddersfield Town – of the English Championship, 2007 – 2014 (Academy Coach) where he coached and developed young professional players to become capable of playing in the English Championship; Leeds City College Football Academy.
Greenwood who was a defensive Midfielder during his playing days, replaces Claude Bolton who resigned as the GFF’s TD earlier this year. The new TD arrived in Guyana six days ago and was welcomed by Forde at a Media briefing to officially announce his appointment yesterday afternoon at the GFF Headquarters in Campbellville.
Greenwood has a strong background working on youth development and coaching at the grassroots level and said he is excited to be in Guyana and wants to focus on Coach Education and youth development.
”I was told by players with Guyanese parentage that I have worked with in England that Guyana is a very beautiful place” Greenwood informed. He explained that he was looking for a long term project since his contract in England had ended. He added when he was approached by the GFF he felt this would be a perfect fit to put things in place do things long term.
Forde informed that many persons, including someone from Argentina, applied and after reviewing the candidates, Greenwood was one of three shortlisted.
”Because our focus is on youth development and Greenwood’s background is in this department, he was chosen. But he will be involved in every as aspect of Guyana’s football and like every other person in the GFF including me, his contract has a performance clause written into it” said the GFF Head.
Forde pointed out that the performance of our U-17s is not a true indication of their talent and it is planned to provide more regional youth tournaments for this group. He said there is a need for a common philosophy with regards to discussing the future of national teams.
The GFF President spoke of the successful model implemented by Iceland which resulted in them beating England recently and said that that model could be well suited for Guyana. Greenwood had the opportunity to witness the Golden Jaguars 2-4 loss to Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz in the Scotia Bank CFU Men’s Caribbean Cup 2016 at the Leonora Stadium in West Demerara and disclosed that his first impression of local football was that the Guyanese have lots of potential.
The TD however, wants to develop a ‘Guyana style of play’ and wants to see massive changes in the next five years but stressed there is no ‘quick fix’ and this will take time.
”I have ideas that I want to implement and a National Football Plan will be in place as I meet with all stake holders including the GFF, the Ministry of Sports and the Director of Sports” said Greenwood.
”My immediate task is to meet with the stake holders, setting a developmental course for the different age groups and expand on the work done by the previous TD. See what things fit and what has to be tweaked” Greenwood pointed out.
According to Forde, funding for Greenwood will come from FIFA but other aspects of Guyana’s football programme would require support from Government and the Private Sector. He added that the GFF should be meeting with the Education Ministry shortly to design a programme for the schools.
”We want to tap into girl’s football at schools because what we have found is that we are getting girls who are older now starting to play Football” Ford concluded.
Greenwood is confident of making a difference to Guyana’s football said his contract started from yesterday. (Sean Devers)