Football has always been a way of life for most Goans. It is synonymous with Goa. That the state government decided to give the sport that extra filip by announcing it as the state sport in 2011 made it amply evident to the nation what football meant to Goa and Goans.
The
Goa Football Development Council
(GFDC), a body initiated by the government after football was declared the state sport, has almost fulfilled its promise of introducing quality grassroot football. The target was a minimum 5000 children but due to financial constraints as the flow of promised government funds began to ebb, the GFDC did well, getting close to 4000 children inducted into its 38 centres across the length and breadth of the state.
Large-hearted that we Goans are, the state government went one step further and opened its doors to bail out the national body -- All India Football Federation -- by allowing it to set up its academy in Goa after they had burned their bridges in Mumbai and were struggling to find a suitable state to prepare the national team for the Under-17 World Cup, scheduled in India in 2017.
In fact, the AIFF has conveniently made Goa its base for most of their junior national team preparations. They even got into a 15-year agreement with the
Sports Authority of Goa
(SAG) for exclusive use of the artificial turf ground at Fatorda funded by Fifa.
More Goans got encouraged to take to the sport and their parents decided to give them that push as now there was a road map that gave them a hope of making a career out of it. Goa, like the North East, promised to turn into a state exporting football players.
With three I-League clubs, Dempo Sports Club, Salgaocar FC and
Sporting Clube de Goa
, in the state and FC Goa thriving on the popularity charts, the dream began to unfold. Only just, as the guest of the state, the AIFF, decided to carry out a surgical strike at the heart of Goan football.
It is a strike that has cost the lives of three of the leading clubs in the country even as it attempts to keep the state in oxygen mode, opening the door for the re-entry of a club it had disqualified in 2014 only -- Churchill Brothers.
The AIFF’s decision to restructure the I-League and demote it to a non-entity (League One), with no promotion to the
Indian Super League (
ISL
) which will replace the I-League as the national league, left owners of the Goan clubs devastated and with no choice but withdraw their teams. They were done with decades of charity that was overruled by pure passion. What left them disgusted and disappointed was the cockeyed vision of the AIFF which was flawed and lacked conviction.
To add insult to injury, they decided to let Aizawl FC continue despite being relegated last season and is said to have allegedly reduced the performance bank guarantee from a 100 crore to a mere 1 crore.
As if those acts of cruelty were not enough, AIFF rubbed more salt into Goan wounds with its decision to keep Goa out of the forthcoming election process by ensuring no Goan is nominated to the new AIFF executive committee for the first time since 1986.
The AIFF has now decided to play the fiddle while Goan football begins to burn.
Should the state government continue to play host and encourage the AIFF even as it slays Goan clubs and revels in the role of an ungrateful guest?
Isn’t it time, the Goa government review its dealings with the AIFF instead of being a mute spectator?
Isn’t it time the people of the state, the football players, their parents and families, the association, come together as one and fight to save Goan football and protect the rich history of its clubs that have played a major role in keeping Indian football in the global news?
Has the AIFF lost its soul and have no heart for the children of the state who have sacrificed their grounds for the cause of the India under-17 team’s preparation for the 2017 Under-17 World Cup?
This is some gratitude shown by a clueless national body which has chosen the road to perdition and failed to take note of Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s statement at the Under-17 World Cup logo launch in Goa in October that India’s football legacy needs to be protected.
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