PANJIM: Football giants Dempo Sports Club, will embark on an ambitious plan of kick starting their own football academy soon in Goa. The academy would compliment and develop top quality professional footballers for the elite club.
Shrinivas Dempo, chairman of Dempo Sports Club in an exclusive chat with Herald expressed his views on setting up their football academy and highlighted the reasons for the club’s abysmal performance in the I-League this season.
A visibly pleased Shrinivas made no bones about his future plans for Dempo SC. The top brass is an avid sports enthusiast and a fan of Arsenal. He also admires Barcelona legend Lionel Messi, who is a product of Barcelona Football Academy.
In a bid to encourage home grown talent, Shrinivas strongly stressed on the need for setting up their own football academy.
“Unless there is an academy and strong grassroot development programme there is no future for football. Today, I feel most clubs should go back to their drawing room to chalk out their plans, like we are in the process of launching our own football academy. We have got government approval to start a full fledged school up to the 12th standard and we have sufficient land there. But, we are now only trying to see if we can combine the academy with the school,” informed Dempo.
Dempo SC repertoire needs no embellishments. In the 2004–05 season, Dempo SC club won their maiden National Football League title. They surged ahead and won the league again in the 2006–2007 and followed it with the three I-League triumphs in 2007–08, 2009–2010 and again in 2011-12, making them the most successful club with five league titles more than any other club in India.
The club chairman looked optimistic about the prospect of having their own football academy in Goa.
“We need to develop our own players and squad. The very fact we can select players from the academy and they go to school and practice which I feel is a very good model,” informed the young and enterprising chairman.
“I feel the academy should be realised in about less than three years but that is the only way to build a longer and sustainable team,” stated Shrinivas.
The Dempo SC team has not been in top form in the I-League this season and Shrinivas felt it was due to injuries which the squad is currently plagued with.
“This year has been challenging for us on a couple of counts. We had a change of the head coach. This has an effect on the players. Secondly, we had a spate of injuries. This is something we will look at in the long term. How are we going to perform with ISL and I-League is the big question,” said Shrinivas.
“The core team of FC Goa was formed with Dempo players. Our key players like midfielder Pronay Halder and defender Narayan Das were injured during the ISL. We further had more injuries in the I-League that compounded to our woes. Moreover, we cannot field more than two foreign players. Australian striker Tolgay Ozbey had injury, Afghan defender Zohib Islam Amiri and the Costa Rican midfielder Carlos Hernandez were injured. The change in strategy of the coach too kind of unsettled the players, which I attribute to the teams poor performance this season,” informed Shrinivas.
The club hired Armando Colaco, their first professional manager in 2000, he remained with the club until the end 2012-13 season. In June 2013, the club signed Greek-Australian Manager Arthur Papas who was already working in India as the Indian U-23 National Team Coach.
Currently the team is guided under the watchful eyes of Trevor Morgan, Head Coach from England, India’s Mauricio Afonso, Assistant Coach and Aaron Symons, Assistant Coach from Australia.
Now it remains to be seen if the country’s most decorated club can actually cover lost grounds the coming season. Also given the fact their club’s top chief is looking to launch their own academy which will solidly back the squad with the best of both, infrastructure and talent.
