TEAM HERALD
MAPUSA: The GFA seems clueless as it failed to provide any names of the match officials detailed for the GFA U-18 match between SAI, Ponda and Sporting Clube de Goa at St Cruz ground on December 29 which had to be abandoned as not a single official turned up for supervising the youth match.
The GFA is yet to conduct an enquiry since both teams turned up and even went through their warm up exercises only to go through their biggest disappointment.
In today’s under-16 match between Sporting Clube de Goa and Don Bosco Oratory, at Don Bosco ground, here, in order to get the match going, match commissioner Gregory Estrocio had to summon referee Cedric Peixoto and two B P Ed students from Don Bosco College, Somu Korgaokar and M Sundar Raj to help in officiating because only one match official Ritesh Parsekar reported while Rohidas Bhambar, Anthony Caido and Siddesh Parsekar failed to turn up. This is not the first time that GFA match officials are playing truant. What is surprising is that such incidents keep on repeating as the GFA’s action is not forthcoming. Till then it is the teams and the players who have to undergo the ordeal for no fault of theirs.
“Necessary action will be taken on the match officials who failed to report for the match only after investigations are conducted by the executive committee. The replay of the fixture has not yet been decided,” said GFA acting secretary, Alvarinho Pinho, Wednesday.
The teams played a friendly match and went home after they were disappointed and hurt that the GFA had messed up the kick off.
Meanwhile, several football clubs have shown discontentment following the non-issue of identity cards for inter-village tournaments since their request for transfers are pending since July with the result that the players have been deprived of playing football for nearly five months. “Some players and clubs have submitted incorrect documents for the registration of the identity cards for inter-village football tournaments” said Pinho.
