AGENCIES, NEW DELHI: Four Goans were among the members included in the various committees appointed by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) Executive Committee in a meeting held at Football House, the AIFF Headquarters, New Delhi on Thursday.

The Goan members include Savio Messias (Appeals Committee), advocate Valmiki Menezes (Club Licensing Appeals Body), Lavino J Rebello (Deputy Chairman of Futsal and Beach Soccer Committee) and Adlear D’Cruz  (Players Status Committee).

AIFF President Praful Patel chaired the meeting which was attended by General Secretary Kushal Das; Vice Presidents Subrata Dutta, Larsing Ming, Subhash Chopra, Treasurer ZA Thakur, all other members except Vice-President KMI Mather, Manavendra Singh attended the Meeting.

Abhishek Yadav, Director, Scouting, AIFF, was also present as was Sara Pilot. Chirag Tanna andRochak Langer representing FSDL attended the meeting as invitees.

The committee applauded Patel’s gesture of donating USD 200,000 for Players Benevolent Fund and USD 100,000 for the AFC Social Development Reform Programme.

Welcoming the new members to Executive Committee, Mr. Patel said: “We have a very important and exciting year ahead of us. There are lots of competitions in 2017 which includes the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 as well. It is a huge responsibility on us as we intend to take Indian Football forward,” he said. “The focus at the moment has to be on the U-17 World Cup and the Mission XI million.”

The Committee also congratulated the Senior Indian National Team for their 3-2 victory against Cambodia. Congratulating the team, Mr. Patel said: “I would like to place our appreciation on record for the Coach, the players and the support staff. It was nice to see Sunil (Chhetri), Jeje (Lalpekhlua) and Sandesh (Jhingan) score the goals. Congratulations.”

 “We face a tough challenge against Myanmar and the AIFF has been arranging for International Friendlies to help the team prepare better,” he added.

Dr Swarup Savanur, Mental Training Coach for U-17 National Team provided an insight and his approach which stresses on improving the mindset of the players. “We need to remove the fear from the minds of our players and need to focus on building a pre-competition routine leading to the U-17 World Cup,” Dr Savanur stated.

Abhishek Yadav, COO, India U-17 Team also apprised the Committee about the preparation under new U-17 Coach Luis Norton de Matos.

Savio Medeira, acting Technical Director, AIFF gave an update on Coach Education, the new change in the definition of Grassroots, Academy Accreditation and home grown players. The Committee also ratified the proposed Baby League.

Meanwhile, the Hero Federation Cup will be played in Cuttack, Odisha. It will kick-off on May 7 with the final slated for May 21, 2017. The top 8 placed Teams from the Hero I-League 2016-17 standings will be playing for top honours.

The AIFF decided to implement a State Ranking system which is to be introduced as per the performance of the State Associations relating to all aspects of the game.

Meanwhile the three-year calendar for AIFF National Competitions was also approved by the Executive Committee.  The venues for all the competitions would be decided on a rotational basis.