Ten differences between ISL and I League

1. ISL is a short league of three months with 8 teams whereas I league is a longer league of five to seven months with 11 teams (2014-15).

2. ISL can register 10 foreign players and play 6 in the first eleven whereas I League can register 4 foreign players (three non- Asians and one Asian) and play 4 in the first eleven.

3. ISL players have a contract for three to four months whereas I League players have a contract of one to three years.

4. In ISL there is no promotion nor relegation from the bottom placed teams whereas in I League there is, both promotion and relegation, from and to the lower league.

5. The prize money in ISL is Rs 8 crores for the winners whereas in I League it is 70 lakhs.

6. ISL matches will be played under floodlights at 7 pm whereas I League matches are played at odd hours between 3 pm to 5 pm with no fixed timings.

7. All matches will be telecast live with a record number of nine channels whereas in the I League few matches are selectively telecast by just one channel.

8. Referees and assistant referees in ISL are connected with wireless sets improving communication and decision making whereas in I League without the equipment the men in black are found wanting. 

9. ISL franchises are new and have a deal for 10 years to play the ISL whereas some of the I League clubs have been in existence for more than 20,50 and even hundred years and they will play the I League as long as they are not relegated.

10. The champion club in ISL will get to play the next edition of ISL whereas the champion club of I League will get to play the next edition of I League and also the higher level of club competition in Asia ie the AFC Cup or even the Champions League.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The positives and negatives of ISL

The slogan ‘Lets football’ coming from IMG-R backed ISL has captured the heart and minds of all the sports loving people in the country. The stage is all set for an extravaganza to be unfolded on the 12^th of Oct 2014, where else, at Kolkata, the football crazy state in India. Football is the most popular game in the world and that’s why FIFA has more countries affiliated with it (209) than even the United Nations Organization (193).

Will this be revolution and a re- birth of a new footballing nation? Will it help India qualify for the FIFA World Cup in the near future? Or will it be just be an excellent league but not much beneficial to Indian football.

Here are some of the positives and negatives of Hero Indian Super League.

The Positives:

1. Grassroots Development:

All the eight franchises ie   Atlético de Kolkata, Chennai Titans, Delhi Dynamos, FC Goa, FC Pune City, Kerala Blasters FC, Mumbai City FC, NorthEast United have a commitment to work at the grass roots through in schools and maidan initiatives. This is undoubtedly the basic requirement for any country which aspires to play the game and take it to the highest level. In times to come if the stakeholders focus on the infrastructure, training, diet and other aspects of the game at the grassroots, Indian football will surely be heading in the right direction.

2.  Prize money, Marquee Managers and Players

Never in the history of the game has such a huge investments been made to create an environment and draw fans to the stadium in this otherwise cricket crazy country. The prize money of Rs 15 crore is second only to the hugely popular Indian Premier League (T20-Cricket) which offers Rs 35 crore. The array of marquee players and former world cuppers with the likes of Allessandro Del Piero(Italy/Delhi Dynamos), David James( England/Kerala Blasters), Joan Capdevila (Spain/NorthEast United),David Trezeguet(France/FC Pune City), Freddie Ljungberg (Sweden/Mumbai City FC) will make the world take notice of the Indian Super League. The presence of high profile managers such as the great Zico( Brazil/FC Goa), Ricki Herbert( New Zealand/NorthEast  United) Franco Colomba( Italy/FC Pune City), Harm van Veldhoven( Holland/Delhi Dynamos), Antonio López Habas(Spain/Atletico deKolkata) and Peter Reid( England/ Mumbai City FC) together with the marquee and other international players will collectively add experience and make the league highly competitive. The local players will get an opportunity of the lifetime to share the dressing rooms and rub shoulders with these great managers and players thus boosting their confidence.

3. Infrastructure:

All the venues ie Salt Lake Stadium,Kolkata, West Bengal, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Chennai) Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Delhi) Fatorda Stadium,Goa, Balewadi Stadium,Pune, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Kochi), DY Patil Stadium,Mumbai, Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium,Assam are being refurbished and upgraded to give the fans the best of facilities. .It will be an altogether different experience and environment at the stadiums where even families can come and enjoy the game

4. Telecast:

The telecast, rights bagged by Starports, is expected to be of high quality and millions of fans all over India, specially those places where there are no franchises, can watch the games in the comfort of their living rooms. The timing of the matches being at 7 pm in the evening makes it very convenient for fans to see the games live, either in the stadiums or in their living rooms. This will improve the viewership of Indian football which will make the game economically viable.

5. The Glamour factor:

The involvement of cricketers viz the legendary Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, the Bollywood star such as Salman Khan, John Abraham, Abhishek Bachan and the heartthrob Ranbir Kapoor, all co-owners of the franchises will surely add glamour to the whole environment at the stadiums on match days and may thus attract crowds to the stadium. Sponsors has always been a problems for this game to survive and with the active involvement of such stars from Bollywood and Cricket, football in India has a new launching pad.

The Negatives:

1. The duration of the league:

Indian Super League will be played for a period of three months ie from 12 of October 2014 to 29^th of December,2014. It’s a round robin league with each franchisee playing games on home and away basis. With eight franchises in fray, a maximum of 17 matches will be played by the two franchises who reach the finals. For the development of the game, it is very obvious that the game has to be played throughout the season. All over the world where football is highly developed, the mainstay is their professional league which gives the players a minimum of 30 to 40 competitive matches in a season. This helps the players to get the required exposure and experience to perform at their optimum. In most of the European countries, the number of clubs in the top league is normally twenty. EPL (England), La Liga(Spain), Serie A (Italy),Bundesliga(Germany) and Ligue 1(France).Besides this they play the Champions League and also play for the country. In the calendar year 2012, Lionel Messi played 69 official matches and scored a record number of 91 goals.  In Asia, the countries specially those who have played the FIFA world Cup, have 12 or more clubs playing in their top leagues: J League(Japan- 18 teams), K League (Korea Professional Football League- 12),Iran League-16, Kuwait League 14, Saudi Arabia League-14. India is a much bigger country, both in size and population and therefore the number of professional clubs in the top league should be raised to 20, if not more. Japan, the most successful country in Asia in the game of football has a vision for 100 professional football clubs in the nation of Japan by 2092, the hundredth season.  

After playing the ISL, the players have to depend on the I League for their development. The present duration of the ISL,being too short, is neither good for the managers to implement their ideas and change things nor conducive for the players to sustain the high standard set by  ISL, throughout the season. It would be much better then, in times to come, to merge the two leagues (12+8) into one major football league, just as it is all over the world.

2. The Number of foreign players:

The composition of each team in in the ISL is thus: one marquee foreign player and seven other foreigners along with 14 Indian players. Out of this, five Indians and six foreign players are expected to play in the first eleven. So out of the 112 Indian players drafted in the ISL, only 40 Indian players will be actually playing in the first eleven and presuming that Indian players will mostly be substituted, another 24 players may also play. With few more changes in the first eleven, not more than 70 players out of the 112 Indian players are likely to play the ISL league. The situation in the I League is completely different. Only 3 out of 4 foreign players were allowed to play in the first eleven in the I League. Despite this, national coaches and also pundits of the game have been crying hoarse that the local players do not get enough exposure, more so in the ‘strikers’ position and thus hinder the growth of Indian players.

The world over, the influx of foreign players is a matter of concern. In Europe specially where there are not much of restrictions, the players produced in the local academies have been given a miss. The whole focus is on buying players from abroad and improving the quality of the league. The classic example here is the English Premier League where the number of non-home grown players allowed in a team is 17 in a squad of 25. And that is why in a recent survey conducted, it was found that only 32 percent of home grown players started in the first eleven in the EPL. On 8^th May 2014, The FA Commission has submitted a report which suggested reducing the number of non-home grown players to 12 by the year 2020-21. FA chairman Greg Dyke said recently to BBC Sport “If we don’t arrest the decline you feel quite bleak about the future of English football. In EPL “You’ll have very a good league, but it’s not about English football.” The J League in Japan, with 18 clubs and only four non –home grown players allowed, is the only professional league in Asia to have been given the ‘A’ certification by AFC. Thus like the EPL,we may have an excellent ‘Indian Super League’ but that may not necessarily improve the ranking of ‘Indian football’, if the number of non-home grown players is not reduced in due course and duration of the ISL is not increased, to have a season long league.

 

 

Churchill Bros SC,Goa deserves a second chance

Inter-village football is unique in Goa and for those not familiar about Goan football may be a bit surprised to know that it has been its lifeline. It could also be called a nursery where budding footballers get an opportunity to exhibit their talent and big clubs get an opportunity to scout and recruit. Some of the big names of the game in Goa such as Brahmanand Shankwalker, Nicolas Pereira , Francis D’Souza, Derrick Pereira, Camilo Gonsalves, Mauricio Afonso and Bruno Coutinho have all played for their respective villages in their teens.

Inter-village football has not only given great footballers to Goa and India but has also resulted in giving them a club of great repute. In the early eighties, a village club in Varca,Goa  started making headlines in the sports section of the newspapers. Varca SC with the backing of Churchill Bros had this path breaking idea to invite top players in Goa to represent Varca SC in village tournaments by paying the players handsomely. Money has always been a great motivation for players and why not. Other village clubs had to pull up their socks to compete with Varca SC.  Churchill Alemao has been a visionary in football and it was at his initiative a corporate was drawn into the game of football. Varca SC was sold to Madras Rubber Factory,Goa  and the club was renamed as  MRF, Soccer Foundation in 1986-87.

Churchill Brothers SC started up in 1988 as Varca  Club. A year later, Varca Club was taken over by Churchill Braz Alemao and along with his Bothers, renamed the club as ‘Churchill Brothers SC’. Since then, it has been a historic rise from being just a village club to being the champion club of India and has won the I League twice, three Durand Cups, IFA shield and the Goa Professional League titles for a number of times. They have not only played the AFC cup but have also played the AFC Champions League, the highest level of club football in Asia qualifiers in the year 2010.

With such a rich background, Churchill Bros SC can safely be called one of the leading pioneer clubs in the game of football, both in Goa and India. We are all excited with the signing of high profile managers, marquee and other international players for the forthcoming Indian Super League. Churchill Bros SC has done and seen it all. Some of the high profile managers being  Danny Maclean(Scottish), Zoran Dordevic(Serbia),Carlos Roberto Pereia(Brazil) and Manuel Gomes (Portugal). Some of the high profile players who have donned colours for Churchill Bros SC  are Edward Ansah, the former Ghanaian international who later on became the goalkeeping coach of Ghana for two world cups in 2006 and 2010, Yusuf Yakubu(Ghana), Odafe Okalie(Nigeria) who have contributed immensely to the rise of Churchill Bros SC.

Churchill Bros demotion from the I League is a major setback not only for them but Goan football as well. That is why an appeal to AIFF by Goa Football Association to retain Churchill Bros SC in the I League is in the interest of the game. Churchill Alemao the patron of the club had in the past expressed his desire and even publicly requested that the number of foreign players eligible to play in the I League be increased, so that the standard of the game is improved and more crowds would come in to watch, thus attracting sponsors to the game. It was the opinion of most pundits and the AIFF think tank that increase in the number of foreign players would result in depriving the local players the right exposure and playing experience at the highest level of the game in India. Now that AIFF, with the introduction of Indian Super League, has allowed seven players to be registered in a franchisee and has departed from the laid down dogma for I League, it should also be accommodating and retain Churchill Bros SC in the I League for season 2014-15. It was argued by GFA that originally the I League was scheduled from Oct 2014 and at the relevant time Churchill Bros SC had failed to meet the criteria for club Licensing set by AIFF. Now that the I League has been postponed to accommodate Indian Super League and will be held only from Jan 2015, in all fairness Churchill Bros deserves another chance at the top in the I League, if the criteria for club Licensing has been fulfilled by yhe club.

Churchill Bros SC, a family club which has spent crores of rupees, season after season and has done yeomen service for Goan and Indian football, for the last twenty five years deserves better treatment by AIFF.

In football, which is better- Club/State team or National team?

If you were to judge purely on the basis of football on display in any competition, what would be your answer be to this -Is club football better than the football played by the national team? Take for example, is the football played by FC Bayern Munich better than the football played by the World Cup winners Germany?

It is a fact that almost everywhere, the top two to three clubs in a country contribute most of the players for the national team. When Spain won the world cup in 2010, most of the players were from FC Barcelona and Real Madrid C.F and this year too when Germany won the world Cup 2014, they had players mostly from FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

These stats are enough to conclude safely that the success of a national team depends very much on the success of the prominent team or teams in a country. Germany and Spain have a good balance of both home grown players and international players. It is for this reason they have won the world cup in the recent past and also an array of players from different countries propel the local league into an international extravaganza. These international footballers bring in the hordes of talent and experience which in turn makes the league a huge business venture. A classic example is the success of English Premier League which is hugely popular in India. It is for this reason why a league in any country must be supported by all the stakeholders to make it vibrant and kicking for the development of the game.

In this context, the Indian Super League to be unveiled shortly is a huge step in the right direction as it brings in the cream of players from all over the world and gives an opportunity for local players to rub shoulders with some former world cuppers and highly successful managers. This would not have been possible otherwise even in their wildest dream. But the only problem is that three months of football is not the pill, doctors of the game of football would prescribe. For healthy growth, one has to take the medicine throughout the season. And that is why merger of ISL and I League would be the perfect dose for the football giant to wake up in India.

Coming back to the question whether club football is better than National football, I would be more inclined towards the former. The main reason is that in the clubs, players are together for a longer period which helps them to understand one another better, both on and off the field. Whereas in the national team, players assemble for a very short period and many a times found wanting in commitment, mostly on account of the club’s reluctance to release players fearing injury to their star players.

India is a huge country and most from the outside consider its size and population as the main parameter for the development of the game, which I feel is absurd. Development doesn’t depend on the size and population but on the talent, passion, infrastructure and facilities available. Talent is there in abundance in India but has not been tapped efficiently. I am of the opinion that instead of trying to take football everywhere in India, it would be prudent to concentrate in those areas where there is real passion for the game. Cricket, anyway, is considered to be next to religion in India.

India’s performance in the two friendly matches played with Pakistan was mediocre and I wonder if the under-23 Goan team could have fared better if given an option to represent India in place of the present Indian side selected for the Asian Games. The players being from one state have better understanding and camaraderie, which is very essential for the success of a team. Goa(India-ranked 156) won gold in the recently held Lusofonia Games, Jan. 2014 in Goa beating a much higher ranked(120) Mozambique under 23 team by a score of 3-2. Another great way to prepare for Asian Games would be to make the Santosh Trophy an under-23 competition with 3 players senior players allowed, as done in the Asian Games. There is so much of talent in India but no proper scouting is done. Mizoram won the Santosh Trophy in style by beating Railways 3-0 in March, 2014.  In the future, winner of the Santosh Trophy (Under -23) could be given an opportunity to represent India in the Asian Games and Olympics which have the same criteria.

 If an all India selected team can lose to Pakistan by 2-0, what harm will it do, if a state team representing India loses by the same margin or more?

Heading a football could be dangerous for children

http://www.sportskeeda.com/football/research-suggests-heading-football-dangerous-children

I would like to bring to the notice of all Associations, Clubs, Schools and others involved in training footballers at the grassroots in Goa and  India that new research has indicated that heading a football could be dangerous for the footballers as it is known that the muscles of the neck of the children are not developed and the brains are still at the developing stage. In Goa, thousands of young footballers are trained by Goa Football Development Council and the knowledge of the coaches should be updated from time to time.  The article that has been published in the website of 'Sportskeeda' must be circulated among all for taking necessary precautions by the coaches and parents.
 

Up-gradation of Club structure-A Key to the development of football

A day after the election of the new Executive Committee of Goa Football Association on 27^th July 2014, came the news about the withdrawal of Wilred Leisure SC from the Goa Professional league. It is indeed very shocking and disheartening to know that the team that stood seventh in the Goa Professional League had second thoughts about continuing in it. It’s a huge setback for Goan Football.  So what compelled the management of Wilred Leisure to opt out? This needs to be analyzed and probed by Goa Football Association for the sake of Goan Football.

What ails Goan Football Clubs? It must definitely be the cost factor of maintaining a club. All clubs have this huge burden of raising money to run the club and most of the amount raised by the club goes in for payment of salaries to the players. If a club like Churchill Bros could not get any sponsors despite winning the I League and the Federation Cup, what could be the fate of smaller clubs competing with the likes of Salgaocar FC, Dempo SC and Sporting Clube De Goa in the Goa Professional League?

It is not understood why the top Goan League is called a professional League? Is this not the case of a cart being placed before the horse? When even a club like Churchill Bros SC with a yearly budget of crores of rupees could not get a ‘Club License’ to play the I league for season 2014-15, why is GFA calling the local league a ‘Professional league’?  The fact of the matter is that the majority of the ten clubs playing the Goa Professional League do not even have a proper organizational setup and a football ground to practice, the basic necessities for a football club. How can a professional League run for just two to three months in a year? It’s very unfortunate that, leaving aside the I League clubs, most of the clubs have a deal with the players for only two to three months ie till the duration of the league. How can there be any development of football in this situation? In this context, it must be said that having two all India Leagues ie I League and ISL in a year would be detrimental for the development of the game in India as it put pressure on the local leagues and a death knell for all other major tournaments in India.

GFA President Elvis Gomes and the new executive committee have a herculean task on hand. Just look at GFA’s website and you will be shocked to see outdated news and fixtures. No effort is made to update its website and even the latest news of having elected a new President and the Executive Committee has not been uploaded on its website.  Goa Football Association is an association of clubs and sadly there is no information on the website about all the clubs affiliated to it. Club structure holds the key to development of the game and all clubs must have a constitution to guide them and a common goal. The goal should be economically viable otherwise more clubs will go the way chosen by Wilred Leisure SC. In this age of internet, GFA must correspond with the affiliated clubs through the internet for which club representatives could be trained to become computer savvy. 

It’s important to know why ‘Wilred Leisure SC’ has opted out of the Goa Professional League and what action is being taken when a club suddenly decides to quit. The criteria for affiliation with GFA must be reviewed and the least that GFA can do, to start with, is make it compulsory for all existing clubs to register under the Society’s Act, for proper accountability and functioning of the clubs.

 

Quo Vadis-Goan Football ?

Goa is known the world over as the land of Sun and Sea.  Goa is also famous for its fish curry rice, Caju feni (Goan liquor of cashew juice), music and football. Goa has produced musicians and footballers of great repute. Chris Perry, Remo Fernandes(musicians) and Fortunato Franco, Brahmanand Shankwalkar, Bruno Coutinho(footballers) are some of the big names in their respective fields. Goa being very small in territory, the influx of migrants into Goa has become a threat and could end up changing the very face of Goan culture. If necessary steps are not taken in time, very soon Goans may find themselves in a minority in their own land. To make things worse, many Goans have preferred to migrate abroad for better prospects.

In the game of football, Goans consider themselves second to none in India. This is because three football clubs viz Dempo SC, Salgacar FC and Churchill Bros had kept the prestigious football I League title among themselves for six consecutive years from 2007 to 2013.  This year Bengaluru FC ended the reign of Goan supremacy and with that it’s time for Goa to introspect about its claim of   ‘numero uno’ in Indian football. It may not be Goa or Bengal anymore as the performance of new clubs like Bengaluru FC, Shlliong Lajong and Rangdajeed FC, Pune FC  in the I League have thrown the competition wide open. Nagaland winning the Santosh Trophy recently makes one wonder whether North-East is going to be the new hub of Indian football.

In Goa, the Dempos, Salgacars, Sesa Goa and individuals like Churchill Alemao and Sporting Clube de Goa’s Peter Vaz have contributed immensely to the game of football, till now. All of them have contributed their might to the game just for the love of it. But the moot question to be asked now is this:  for how long? Except Sesa Goa, none of the four I league clubs have their own residential academies. Goa Football Association and Goa Football Development Council have introduced several centres for grassroots development which is good but not enough. All the players coming out of the regional centres must find themselves in residential academies preferably owned by the I league professional clubs. This will give the hopefuls some sense of security and a dream to be a professional footballer.  Those aspiring to be engineers will enroll themselves in Engineering Colleges. So also those eying to be professional footballers must join ‘Residential Football Academies’.

It is important that Goans footballers form the core of a club, if they expect the crowds to support them.  Unfortunately the presence of the Pereiras,D’Souzas,Fernandes,Naiks,Lotlikars etc have diminished year by year in the Goan I League Clubs. Except in Sporting Clube de Goa, Goans were a minority in all the other three Goan Clubs in the I League. Sporting Clube de Goa had the best figures of 66% Goans(20/30 players), followed by Dempo SC: . 41%(17/41 players),Churchill Bros: 37%(13/35 players)and Salgaocar FC: 36%(16/44 players). In order to change this equation, it’s important that the clubs undertake community service by way of training at the grassroots and open up residential football academies to give opportunities for the locals. The Goa(India) team that played in the Lusofonia Games 2013 in Goa with a squad of all Goan players, is a fine indication as to what draws the crowds to the stadiums. The stadiums were jam packed for all the football matches played in ‘Lusofonia Games’.

Clubs could be economically more viable when they produce more players locally and recruit less number of players from outside.  At all levels, rules must be framed to compensate clubs whenever a player is transferred from one club to the other. This could be food for thought not only for Goan clubs but for all football clubs in India.

Lusofonia Games - A boon for Goan sports.

All Sports aficionados in India know about the Olympic Games, World Cup (events) and the Commonwealth Games. But how many in India have heard about the Lusofonia Games? Very few indeed!

The Lusofonia Games, like the commonwealth games, are meant for community of Portuguese Language Countries and also others where there are significant Portuguese communities or that have a common past with Portugal. On account of this, Goa(India) being a former Portuguese colony got affiliation to ACOLOP(Association of the Portuguese Speaking Olympic Committees) as an associate member and had the honour of hosting the 3^rd edition of the Lusofonia Games from 18^th Jan to 29^th Jan 2014. It is for this reason that Goa and not India should have participated in these games. Imagine what would have happened if China had to send their national players because Macau is now part of China. Except football, all other games had players from the rest of the country thus defeating the very purpose of the games. In all, there are only twelve countries participating in the Lusofonia Games. Out of the twelve, only two countries ie Portugal and Brazil are sports powerhouses. The moment these two countries decided not to participate specially in football, the games lost its lustre. The former sports minister and now vice president of the BJP Shri Wilfred Mesquita called the Lusofonia Games a big farce just a day after Goa(India) was celebrating the 3-2 victory over Mozambique in the finals.  He could be right to some extent as there were just three teams in men volleyball competition and all three were assured medals even before they played. But in football it was the state defeating a country and it is by far, no mean feat.

The Government of Goa burnt midnight oil to raise the required infrastructure in a record time of just over a year and purely from this point of view, ‘Lusofonia Games’ could be termed as a huge success and a boon for Goan sportsmen for generations to come. The postponement of the games gave breathing space to the government to complete five world class venues for all games like Table tennis, Basketball, Volleyball, Football etc. Out of the five, two football stadiums were refurbished and upgraded to international standard in a record time of little over a year. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stadium Fatorda,Margao, built in 1989 in a record time of six months, is Goa’s pride where both Football and Cricket International matches were played in the past. The other stadium Tilak Maidan, Vasco is the oldest football stadium in Goa and has been the home ground for Goa’s two favourite teams: Salgaocar FC and Vasco SC. Goa now have two floodlight stadiums. A couple of years back the government was struggling to install floodlights at the the JPN stadium at Fatorda, Margao due to which teams like Dempo SC and Churchill Bros had to play the AFC matches outside Goa.   

For any game to develop, talent and proper infrastructure are the basic requirements. In football, we have talent in abundance and now ‘Lusofonia Games’ have given Goa the much required state of the art infrastructure. Flood light stadiums would make it possible to organize I League matches late in the evening thus enabling players to perform at their peak and supporters to come in bigger numbers. Live telecast of late evening matches enable more people to view  matches. These stadiums will also help Goa to organize some of the matches of the U 17 FIFA World Cup to be held in India in 2017. As hosts, India will be competing in the U 17 FIFA world cup and this could be a dream come true. How else could India qualify for this world event? Japan and S.Korea regularly qualify for the junior world event as ‘grassroots football’ has been their focus. The grassroots and the underage FIFA world cups( U17, U 20) should be targeted by India instead spending crores of rupees on the senior team and dreaming about qualifying for the FIFA World Cup. U-17 FIFA World Cup should be our dream and we need to take this dream to the youngsters and give them belief and hope. For this, we need to start from the grassroots. Thanks to Chief Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar, Goan football is on the right track. His brainchild, the Goa ‘Football Development Council’ has opened up several training centres for the U-12 age group and around two thousand boys and girls are reported to be training at these centres. It’s good to see hundreds boys and girls being trained at even remote places like Pernem,Sulcorna and Collem in Goa.

The formation of ‘Goa Football Development Council’ a government organization and the state of the art ‘Sports Infrastructure’ now in place, thanks to the ‘Lusofonia Games,2014’, could be the turning point of Goan and Indian football and sports in general.