TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: “Goa has the potential of becoming the hub of Indian football. Goa has shown the way for football development for the rest of India. Lot of things are already happening in Goa for football promotion and it can be showcased for the rest of country. The time has now come to make football even more popular, understanding the business of football with adequate planning and systematic development. Most importantly, clubs need to have good training facilities as talent abounds and then the players should put in overall 10,000 hours to become professionals with the best playing against the best,” was what the GIFT summit organized by GFDC suggested after the well-organized and well-attended two-day summit at Mira Mar, Saturday.
“The comprehensive plan is already there. The time has now come to start working the plan. It’s a great initiative to discuss football. The need of the hour is an action plan. There are a lot of good footballers in the country. We need to develop football in a much better way. The money used for the 2-day exercise could have been better used for training youngsters on pitches. Don’t think of problems. Please develop football the way it should be. Often, we make plans after plans and that’s all. Action please. Do it and that’s the way forward,” reasoned out National coach Wim Koevermans.
“We can change a lot of things. There are pro clubs without academies and academies without pro clubs. Every pro club must have an academy so that the youngsters fulfill their dream of making it to the top of their own club first. It’s a huge motivation for the youngsters. Bring in the best and then play the best against the best with elite competitions in U-15, U-17, U-19 on regular basis. Start at the grassroots and remember football is played for the pleasure of fans, so football must be of high intensity or else it will not be enjoyed by fans,” explained the coach.
“Things have changed already, although not with the desired speed. Finances are a problem. It is here that the role of Government becomes important. The State Leagues need to be revamped. The five Goan clubs in I-League have to be sustained in the long run. There are no nurseries to harness talent, so we need to strategize. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. What’s needed is to develop action plans since the details are already there,” pointed out Wim.
Earlier, speaking on the efficient use of stadium infrastructure, Paul Fletcher, CEO, Burnley Football Club disclosed that a stadium must not only provide football action during the calendar year but should also help to generate income through exhibitions, conferences, banquets, concerts, entertainment programmes. The Wembley stadium in London will now house a sports university and as such one now should talk about legacy, community and revenue. We need to talk about the lack of resources. A football stadium cannot go along with athletics track or cricket pitch. Football and rugby can go together as action is close to the spectators,” said Fletcher.
“The stadium plays a key role in community development as it can provide job opportunities for the people. You need to educate people in order to administer the stadium,” added the Englishman, who pointed out that the London Olympic stadium was lying idle now since it was not football specific, there being no room for that great football atmosphere. In England, football stadiums are fully covered while the Olympic stadiums are only partly covered and that’s also true for Commonwealth ones,” explained Fletcher.
Mohamed Basir, coach education head, AFC speaking on talent development, stressed on the need to nurture young talent rather than buying talent. “Grassroots hold to the key in any football programme and it is the job of coaches to identify and educate the players. This calls for a strong leadership at every level with a good succession plan,” said Basir, who opined that the clubs and the national team should be unified with the same philosophies to meet one model and that it is the AIFF model that has to be adopted by the states.
Kushal Das, AIFF general secretary, who made no secret that he is against speaking at conferences, highlighted that football teaches one to develop values in life. “The AIFF is making efforts to engage the community with football.”
Peter Vaz, president, Sporting Clube de Goa felt that the AIFF had not succeeded in reaching all the four corners of the country. “In India, football survives due to people’s passion for the game and there is lots more to be done by the AIFF to develop the sport,” said Vaz.
Hass Aminian, director, New Business Development, Sportfive International (Asia) talking about marketing and sponsorship in football stated, “We need to build up interest in people who are not engrossed in football especially through television.”
“Television is the best way to promote Indian football and star players. It can even build interest among women if the timings of the games are properly scheduled,” said Valanka Alemao, CEO, Churchill Bros. Valanka made a forceful plea for proper packaging and marketing of the game and that the TV product should be of very high standard. “The AIFF should part with the money they earned from TV rights with the I-League clubs,” emphasized Valanka.
Mariano Barreto (Portugal) brought out the fact that it is very important to get more and more children attracted to the ground and just not concentrate on infrastructure. “Several great players who came from poor economic background never had the fortune of developing their careers with the help of top class facilities. They played sometimes on rough surfaces but their hard work and dedication was of a very high order,” he remarked. “Ghana had just one stadium at one time, but look at the number of world class players they produced,” he added.
P K Mukherjee (Sesa Goa), Raj Gomes (Salgaocar), Henry Menezes (CEO, WIFA), R Sasikumar (ex-captain, Singapore), Shrinivas Dempo, Vinod Parkkot, Joshua Lewis (CEO Kenkre FA) also spoke. Udit Shet of TransStadia presented the report and Kennedy D’Silva proposed the vote of thanks. Joseph Rodrigues compered.
Deputy CM, Francis D’Sousa, who was the chief guest at the concluding function, congratulated GFDC and especially Dr Rufino for the wonderful work taken up and plans for opening eight or ten more youth development centres. He asked the stakeholders to find out the reason why there are more spectators at inter-village football than I-League matches and that Goa is no longer the champion State at Santosh Trophy Nationals. He took the audience by surprise with his statement that politicians should be kept out of sports organizations. “Politicians vitiate the sports atmosphere and then something goes wrong. There should be no vested interest and only genuine talent needs to be promoted,” he advised.
Francis pointed out that the atmosphere at inter-village matches was electric even though football is not of very high standard.
The summit was supported by DSYA, BSW, AFC, AIFF, GFA alongwith Yes Bank, Nivia, Oriental Bank of Commerce, 90 Minutes, sportskeeda, Dempo, Salgaocar, Churchill Bros, Sporting Clube de Goa.
