TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The All India Football Federation Secretary Kushal Das intervened on behalf of the Goa Football Association and instructed the organizers and the match commissioner to allow Goa to field its captain Malcolm Gonsalves in the remaining matches of the National Under-14 football tournament underway at Kalyani, West Bengal.
Goa Football Association President Srinivas Dempo, who also is AIFF vice-president telephonically spoke to Kushal Das, informing him that Malcolm Gonsalves, who also played last season in the AIFF under-13 age-group tournament, also held at Kalyani, was surprisingly found to be over-age in the ongoing under-14 tournament this year, which is played at the same venue.
The same documents proving that he qualifies within the required age bracket, making him eligible to play, were produced this year too with other supporting documents such as baptism certificate, school certificate etc.
Convinced that Malcom is not a case of overage after Srinivas placed the facts of the case before him, Kushal Das informed the organizers including the match commissioner to permit Malcom to participate.
However, the case of the Goan player, who was also found to be overage by doctors after MRI tests were conducted at Kalyani, Johan Gracias and not Deeptesh Naik as reported earlier, continues to be barred from playing.
“The Goa Football Association is conducting its inquiry and Johan will be examined by our panel of doctors, once he returns to Goa. We will than take up the matter with the AIFF through proper channels,” Adlear D’ Cruz, GFA secretary informed Herald.
“Since Johan has not played in any AIFF age group tournaments earlier, we lacked sufficient ground to place his matter at the moment before Kushal Das,” Adlear pointed out.
Meanwhile, Goa lost to Manipur 1-5 today. Goa will now on face the tournament’s top teams Punjab on Thursday and Maharashtra the day after.
