PANJIM: With the 2018-19 footballing season just about to conclude, the Goa Football Association have already started planning for the next season as they prepared the calendar for the upcoming 2019/20 season in a bid to avoid delays and other glitches to conduct the smooth functioning of the leagues in the State.
Following the joint meeting of Competions, Technical, women’s, referees committees held on May 30, the tentative calender has been chalked out which will be put before the Executive Committee which will meet to finalise the 2019-20 calender of all leagues and other competitions.
It is learnt that the State football association advanced most of their league engagements including the Vedanta Women’s League and Goa Professional League for next season.
Following their executive committee meeting held on May 30 at GFA Secretariat, the house chalked down the annual calendar for the 2019/20 football season.
According to the sources, it has been learnt that the GFA Vedanta League will commence in July along with U-20 TACA Goa First Division League, which usually takes place at the fag end of the season.
“We have planned to have the U-20 League season during this time so that the young players get enough matches and also to help us to conduct the league in a better way for the betterment of the youth,” GFA President Churchill Alemao.
“And once the U20 tournament is played early the Goa Pro League clubs and 1st Div League will get an opportunity to select these players based on their performance for their clubs and this will also help the players too to get professional clubs,” added Churchill.
The Pro League will commence in August along with U-16 League and 3rd Division Leagues with the Charity match between Goan FC and Dempo SC tentatively scheduled to take place on August 1.
“We have in fact altered the entire football calendar this season and we will ensure that Goan football fraternity will witness better organized leagues this year. We have worked on most of the leagues and also working on getting title sponsors for the main leagues,” added Alemao.
Whilst the State sub junior boys camp would be held in the first week of August, one of the best step taken by GFA is to hold the Santosh Trophy Camp in 3rd week of August.
“Like we said before our main priority is winning the Santosh Trophy. This year we were almost there but fell short in the semi-finals but this year we are aiming to build a strong team and give them ample of time to understand their game plan and prepare for the main event as we would want to get the title back to Goa,” said Competitions Committee chairman Domnic Pereira.
