Team Herald
PANJIM: FC Goa, who had only asked for postponement of the draft of the GFA Vedanta Women’s League, is surprisingly left out of the league according to the draft released by Goa Football Association.
Ravi Puskur, director, Football FC Goa in a letter to the GFA on October 15, requested the postponement of the draft saying that the club was not optimally prepared to form a team to the best of abilities and that all teams involved would benefit from a postponement of the draft to better prepare themselves for this league.
“It is not our decision to opt out of the tournament. We had only asked for postponement of the draft as we had some issues which needed to be sorted out”, informed Ravi.
Defending their process of holding the draft, a GFA source said: “We didn’t ask any club to leave. FC Goa were part of every meetings earlier but at the last minute they asked for postponement of the draft which was not possible. FC Goa did not turn up for the draft as such they were kept out of the league”.
“There is nothing truth in their statement. Their official gave false statements wherein they had their representation in every meetings we had earlier during the discussions about the league”, he added.
“Vedanta through their official Melroy Moura informed the GFA general secretary that since his higher ups felt there was some problem as only four teams were participating the open draft could not be held at Vedanta at Patto Panjim and this being the situation that he himself (Moura) would not be able to attend the draft also. Consequently all those who came for the draft were directed to the new venue of the draft at Mandovi”, the source added.
It the letter FC Goa’s had also highlighted concerns with the tournament in its current format, saying it was disappointed at the GFA’s decision to not allow players to be retained, as the club had plans to retain the core of our team that reached the finals last season. We were also preparing to sign long-term contracts with some of the players and were planning to gradually elevate our investment in Women’s football over the next few years. The lack of consistency in decision making at the GFA has hampered our ability to plan long term.
“This year the league has reduced the number of teams by half, thereby reducing opportunities for a lot of the players to play competitive, organised football. This turn of events was not communicated to us prior and we were only made aware via the press reports. This puts a big responsibility on all teams to keep the players motivated over the course of an entire season when they only have six competitive matches to look forward to,” the letter said.
