PANJIM: The Goa Football Association on Thursday suspended and imposed fines on five professional players for playing in the unofficial village tournament.
The GFA also decided to take stricter action against the registered players who continue to play in unregistered tournaments and imposed a penalty of Rs 20,000 on Hayden Fernandes and Nickson Castanha, who are under suspension.
Repeat offenders, Joaquim Abranches, Suraj Hadkonkar and Nicholas Fernandes were penalised for Rs. 40,000 with suspension for two months. All these players expressed apologies.
In the Executive Committee also reviewed the progress of the Professional and the Third Division Leagues which are underway and also discussed about the preparations for the TACA Goa and the U-14 leagues scheduled to commence this month, under the chairmanship of the President Elvis Gomes, at Duler, on Thursday.
“Despite grounds availability issues, the Third Division has almost reached the play-off stage and the initial matches in the Goa Professional League had some thrilling finishes and surprise results,” stated Gomes.
The recent statement of the CM that GFA had boycotted the U-17 World Cup was termed as baseless and without any truth, “Someone must have tried to prejudice the CM with an ulterior motive. CM in his wisdom should have checked up before shooting off,” said Gomes.
It was decided to raise the issue with regards to the non-payment of dues of Rs. 10 lakhs by the SAG pertaining to the Lusofonia games with the CM, “The GFA had recently led a delegation to the Sports Minister in this regard but despite his assurances, nothing has been heard as yet,” Gomes added.
The GFA decided to refer case of suspension of women players for alleged act of indiscipline and attempt to assault another player to the Disciplinary Committee.
With the commissioning of the generator at Duler, it was decided to allow affiliated Clubs to play matches under floodlights by bearing only the cost of diesel to encourage clubs to play later in the evenings.
