MAPUSA:?After growing speculations that the Goa Football Association elections were heading to a dead end, the two candidates Savio Messias and Elvis Gomes, who had filled in their nominations for the posts of president, had a sigh of relief as their nominations had been accepted by the GFA, on Monday.
Baseless allegations were made against Elvis, who is a top Government servant. Messias previously argued that his opponent, who is the current GFA vice-president (South) could not contest for a second term as per the guidelines of the central Government which states “no Government servant should be allowed to hold elective office in any sports association/ federation for a term of more than four years or for one term, whichever is less”.
However, it is learnt that GFA has not yet passed such a resolution in their Annual General Body Meeting which permits Elvis for the top post. Moreover, Elvis, who is the director of Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) had previously got all clearances from the State government and has the backing form Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
“He (Savio) has spent a lot of time before the Returning Officer only impressing with this one single point. When all these codes have been put before a learned distinguish jury, and in spite of him (Savio) pleading before him, Savio has not succeeded so where is the question of commenting on this matter?” questioned Gomes.
“The very fact that I have been cleared shows that all allegations made against me were bogus. This aspect is more than clear and everything has been checked by the Returning Officer”, added Gomes.
The Returning Officer also accepted Messais’ candidature and did not consider the request of both Benfica Sports Club and Vasco Sports Club who had back tracked Messais by withdrawing their support.
Schubert Furtado from South Goa who was the only person to fill in for the post of vice-president (South) has been cleared unopposed. Meanwhile, the other four nominations for vice-president’s post (North) have also been cleared. It will be a close contest between current vice-president, Lavinio Rebello, Babli Mandrekar, Jose Welvin Menezes and Nilkhant Naik.
From the total 33 nominations for the post of executive committee members, 29 candidatures have been accepted.
Babli along with Patrick D’Souza, Tony Remedios, Gajanan Kerkar, Raju Banavlikar, Uday Lingudkar, Luciano Perreira, Santosh Bandodkar, Adv Domnic Perreira, Alirio Lobo and Francis Viegas will contest for executive member post in Bardez.
Angelo Albuquerque, Sanjiv Nagvekar, Shankar Kalangutkar, Rupesh Halankar, Victor Gonsalves and Jose Welvin Menezes will contest the Tiswadi Taluka executive post.
Arnaldo Costa, Anthony Leo Fernandes, Ben Bishut Themudo, Anthony Pango, Jaju Fernandes, Joe Mario Fernandes, Joaquim Inacio Fernandes, Dionizo Dias and John Silva’s nomination have been accepted form Salcete zone.
Lawrence Gomes, Prakash Naik and Andre Rodrigues are the only three candidates to get clearance form Mormugao zone.
Cosme Oliveira, Francisco Souza, Francisco Nunes and Custodio Almeidaare the four whose nominations have been rejected. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is July 12.
