The gathering was attended by 300 trainees from all the 37 GFDC Grassroot centres.
Speaking on the occasion, Agnelo Fonseca, Council Member, GFDC expressed great pleasure in seeing GFDC conduct such festivals for young budding children and commended the young boys who have made it to the GFDC Residential Academy and urged other trainees to follow the example and continue the hard work which will see them as future GFDC Academy players.
Aleixo Da Costa, Member Secretary, GFDC congratulated the GFDC technical team led by GFDC Coaching Officer, Derryl D’Souza for organizing the festival with precision. He further encouraged trainees to continue playing and training hard.
“In future, India which has the largest youth population will have our own Messis, Ronaldos and Neymars,” said D’Souza.
GFDC Chairman Dr Rufino Monteiro expressed happiness that GFDC’s grassroot football development programme has been robust, a very exemplary one for the country , confined to hinterland areas and villages.
“The programme was ably supported by the State government and has been very successful with four of their trainees being selected for India U-14 teams and the State’s sub-junior national teams comprising mainly of the GFDC trainees. All this was accomplished within a short span of three and half years,” said Monteiro. He further commended the good work of the coaches and centre heads .
