Sudeep Pakrashi:

Pushparghya Chattopadhyay created history silently. The football executive, as well as a sports consultant from India, more precisely from Bengal, with an overall experience of 15 years, has been appointed as the General Secretary of the Guyana Football Federation. Chattopadhyay, who joined GFF on 1st August, has been appointed as the General Secretary for three years.

This appointment was the outcome of a comprehensive international recruitment process jointly conducted by the GFF and FIFA. The position attracted applications from over 40 candidates representing five of the six FIFA confederations. Through a structured, multi-phase evaluation, including interviews, technical assessments, and detailed background checks, a shortlist of six top candidates was established. Chattopadhyay was selected based on his outstanding credentials and clear alignment with the GFF’s strategic direction.

Chattopadhyay, who started in Indian football as a manager of Mohun Bagan-SAIL Football Academy in 2010, worked as the Chief Executive Officer of the Indian Football Association (IFA) before joining GFF, and he also worked with All India Football Federation (AIFF) for almost 12 years, being in charge of some important departments.

While speaking to Parallel Sports from Georgetown on a WhatsApp call on Wednesday, Chattopadhyay did not sound excited. Rather, he uttered, “Yes, obviously I am happy to have been appointed out of 40 applicants from five of six FIFA confederations. But I am looking forward to this assignment as I have always looked at my previous assignments.”

Guyana’s national football team’s current FIFA ranking is 153rd. The history of Guyana national football team shows that they have never qualified for the final phase of the FIFA World Cup. The national team’s impressive performance came when they qualified for the Caribbean Nations Cup in 1991, raised their FIFA ranking to 86th in 2010, and qualified for the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time in March 2019.

However, Guyana’s national team beat India’s senior national team 2-1 in a friendly match held in Georgetown on 25th August 2010 during India’s Caribbean tour.

But Chattopadhyay does not seem to be concentrating on the improvement of the national team’s performance now. Rather, his focus is on the development of the country’s overall football, which includes three main issues like infrastructure development, the change in League structure, and grassroots development.

“Guyana is going to have a massive economic growth soon. After the rich resources of petroleum and gas have been discovered in the country recently, big investors are coming to the country. On behalf of GFF, my aim is to utilize the rapidly-changing atmosphere and take football to a much better level,” explained Chattopadhyay.

As football in the country is not as popular as cricket is, Guyana has only one senior-level football league. Talking about infrastructure, Georgetown has three stadiums where even international football matches took place, while outskirt of the town lacks the required infrastructural support.

But according to Chattopahyay, “The famous Amazon rainforest is starting outside Georgetown, and I have information that several tribal boys who live within the forest are passionate about football. I have a desire to roam around the places and create infrastructural opportunities for them so that they can be part of GFF’s grass-roots development program in the future.”