PANJIM: The Goa Football Association (GFA) launched its website www.gfagoa.com where all schedules, live scores, rules, regulations, circulars will be uploaded for fans, stakeholders, clubs here, Sunday.
After the Annual General Body Meeting (AGM), Jonathan de Sousa, vice-president, said that the dedicated website would help the association to connect with the clubs and others for news, documents, information.
President Caitano Fernandes said that they had lot of plans to improve football in the State. Playing more number of matches, nearly 2200 in all, will provide more opportunities to the players and thus raise the standard, he added. A record 826 matches in a mere seven months, including16 matches a day on two occasions, were organised in the last season.
Caitano said they had approached new sponsors who were amenable for providing sponsorships. “We conducted National Women’s Championship and the government has promised Rs 52 lakhs as grant. We require Rs 3-4 crore to run GFA. The CM has promised Rs 6 crore which should come in a couple of months,” he added.
Responding to a query about clubs from outside coming and playing in Goa, Jonatahn said it would depend on the local club that was approached. He said if a club from outside was willing to invest and the local club was expressing interest, then the GFA would have nothing to do in that matter. He, however, pointed out the GFA had insisted on three conditions in the bid document being followed – a minimum of 40 % of players selected would have to be Goans; they would have to invest in youth development of entirely Goan talent; organise a grassroot football festival for all Goan clubs once a year and invest and keep one football pitch for the training throughout the year.
The Technical Evaluation Committee will meet on July 24 to decide on the bids.
FC Mardol and Siddeshwar Sports Club were accorded permanent member status after completing their five-year term fulfilling the obligations.
Talking about the National Games, Caitano disclosed that they had prepared a plan for a 90-day outstation camp. The selection of the team would take place in the next couple of weeks.
Speaking about the performance in the Santosh Trophy, the president said he had given Rs 3 lakhs as bonus but their performance was very poor. Now, with Mariano Dias as the Technical Director there will be better performance, pointed out Caitano.
The official competitions are slated to begin by end-July with futsal.
Clubs praised the executive committee in largely bridging most of the financial deficit from the previous tenures. The association’s effective deficit was only Rs 5 lakhs.
