GFA vs GCA; Floodlights, Fatorda and Kicks backs
Why in Goa, we have to increasingly take recourse to the Law Courts to solve our problems is a question which has been troubling me for last couple of years. Garbage, Coastal Regulation Zone violations, Coastal shacks, has been some of the burning topics which have landed on the doorsteps of the Courts. The legal luminaries have been looked upon to deliver justice, pass judgments and come to decisions where the spineless politicians and the bureaucracy, which were suppose to help in the decision-making process have run out of options.
The great Goan fight over trivial and non-trivial things, from business to environment has been ranging in the small state of India for quite some time. Now it is the turn of sports to join the bandwagon.
Boxing Day is almost one month away, but if Goa Football Association (GFA) secretary Savio Messais threat of approaching the courts for recourse to using the Nehru Stadium at Fatorda is to be taken seriously, then Goans will well might see a prelude of the Boxing Day match between GFA and Goa Cricket Association much before the Boxing Day.http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=30413&cid=4
GFA, which is hosting the Indian Professional I-league matches and the AFC Cup League matches have just one international size football stadium. The bone of contention is the use of the stadium, both, GCA and GFA having laid claim to using it.GCA has booked the stadium for one and half month from January 1 to February 20 as they have been allotted the India-south Africa One-day international cricket match.
The 35,000 capacity stadium built in 1989 has had earlier hosted international cricket matches and the most notorious has been the April 6, 2002 match when GCA officials and the ticket contractor for the match printed more tickets then what the stadium could hold. Thus, genuine tickets holders were turned away from the gates and some of them were cane-charged by the police. Cases involving alleged offences related to the 2002 match with GCA president Dayanand Narvekar and other officials as alleged accuse are still pending in the Margao courts.Every time a cricket match is being held GCA books the stadium for two months to prepare the pitch for the pre-dominantly football stadium.
But that is not the only cause of concern for the football lovers in Goa. The issue of floodlights at Fatorda has been dragging for the last two years. If non-availability of floodlights at Fatorda stadium forced Dempo Sports Club had to play their AFC Cup matches in Hyderabad, the lesson has not been learnt till now.
Dempo had to play their two AFC Cup home matches in Hyderabad on account of the lack of floodlights at the Nehru Stadium incurring an expenditure of Rs.52 lakhs per match. Football lovers feel that football is getting a step motherly treatment from the state cabinet in spite of the presence of Joaquim Alemao, the President of 'GFA and his brother Churchill Alemao patron of Churchill Bros in the state cabinet.
If one goes through past records Goa Cricket Association President Dayanand Narvekar and former cabinet minister has been successful in spending crores of rupees in renovating and building new facilities for international cricket matches at Nehru Stadium Fatorda. And the Alemao brother’s football club will be the sufferers for their indifference for not vigorously pushing for the case for floodlights at Nehru Stadium in Fatorda.Last year’s I-League winners Churchill Bros will also have to play their AFC Cup League matches this season elsewhere, if new flood lights are not installed at Fatorda.
If cricketing Icon Kapildev’s company was ready to do the Job of fixing the lights for a certain sum and cap it all give a guarantee of one year for the installed lights, his proposal was not acceptable to the Sports Authority of Goa officials and the political masters whom they serve.Yes, kickbacks are the language that the SAG officials and the sports minister have well mastered over the years. SAG officials like V M Prabhudessai who has a weakness for going for each of the every Olympics and World Cup in football ever since he is charge of SAG as executive Director.
If football infrastructure shudders for attention, then GCA had not been thrusting the begging bowl in front of SAG officials and government. GCA coffers are overflowing, thanks to the cash-rich parent body Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) which has been doling out funds for GCA to build modern infrastructure in the state -- the indoors pitches in some of the cities of the state, Porvorim ground are cases which come to mind.It is time to act for the sports lovers in the state.
Sports minister Manohar (Babu) Azgaaonkar enough of your Gandhi market rhetoric, someone must come forward and restore to Gandhigiri. The tax payers had enough of your travel jaunts with PWD officials Rego and their wives visiting Dhabi and Doha, next for nothing, in a bid to understand and study sports infrastructure. It is time Joaquim and Churchill to buckle up their belts, the Azgaonkar’s, the Narvekar’s are trying to push mud from the place from where you are standing.
It is time football administrators and all those connected assert themselves. It is time cricket too has their stadium in Goa. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time for the abysmal state of affairs we are in a political system which cannot decision on their won, forcing people to approach the courts. People who are part of the government, who can make or break the government cannot make the government headed by Chief Minister Digamber Kamat toe their line. Or is it the case wherein Kamat is trying to play the pleasing game, a game which does not argue well for football, cricket and the sport loving spectators of Goa.
If the common man is increasingly forced to take recourse to the courts then why have a government in place. We could well abolish the political system and give the legislative function to the judiciary. Are we ready for the game.
TAIL PIECE:- We salute young 16-year-old Shubam Ulhas Naik, a budding cricketer, who passed away on Wednesday morning. He was suffering from a severe cricket-related eye ailment for the past six months. A cricket ball had hit him just around the eye area during an inter-school cricket match at Nehru stadium, Margao. A injury from which he never recovered with the best of the doctors unable to save his life.
The great Goan fight over trivial and non-trivial things, from business to environment has been ranging in the small state of India for quite some time. Now it is the turn of sports to join the bandwagon.
Boxing Day is almost one month away, but if Goa Football Association (GFA) secretary Savio Messais threat of approaching the courts for recourse to using the Nehru Stadium at Fatorda is to be taken seriously, then Goans will well might see a prelude of the Boxing Day match between GFA and Goa Cricket Association much before the Boxing Day.http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=30413&cid=4
GFA, which is hosting the Indian Professional I-league matches and the AFC Cup League matches have just one international size football stadium. The bone of contention is the use of the stadium, both, GCA and GFA having laid claim to using it.GCA has booked the stadium for one and half month from January 1 to February 20 as they have been allotted the India-south Africa One-day international cricket match.
The 35,000 capacity stadium built in 1989 has had earlier hosted international cricket matches and the most notorious has been the April 6, 2002 match when GCA officials and the ticket contractor for the match printed more tickets then what the stadium could hold. Thus, genuine tickets holders were turned away from the gates and some of them were cane-charged by the police. Cases involving alleged offences related to the 2002 match with GCA president Dayanand Narvekar and other officials as alleged accuse are still pending in the Margao courts.Every time a cricket match is being held GCA books the stadium for two months to prepare the pitch for the pre-dominantly football stadium.
But that is not the only cause of concern for the football lovers in Goa. The issue of floodlights at Fatorda has been dragging for the last two years. If non-availability of floodlights at Fatorda stadium forced Dempo Sports Club had to play their AFC Cup matches in Hyderabad, the lesson has not been learnt till now.
Dempo had to play their two AFC Cup home matches in Hyderabad on account of the lack of floodlights at the Nehru Stadium incurring an expenditure of Rs.52 lakhs per match. Football lovers feel that football is getting a step motherly treatment from the state cabinet in spite of the presence of Joaquim Alemao, the President of 'GFA and his brother Churchill Alemao patron of Churchill Bros in the state cabinet.
If one goes through past records Goa Cricket Association President Dayanand Narvekar and former cabinet minister has been successful in spending crores of rupees in renovating and building new facilities for international cricket matches at Nehru Stadium Fatorda. And the Alemao brother’s football club will be the sufferers for their indifference for not vigorously pushing for the case for floodlights at Nehru Stadium in Fatorda.Last year’s I-League winners Churchill Bros will also have to play their AFC Cup League matches this season elsewhere, if new flood lights are not installed at Fatorda.
If cricketing Icon Kapildev’s company was ready to do the Job of fixing the lights for a certain sum and cap it all give a guarantee of one year for the installed lights, his proposal was not acceptable to the Sports Authority of Goa officials and the political masters whom they serve.Yes, kickbacks are the language that the SAG officials and the sports minister have well mastered over the years. SAG officials like V M Prabhudessai who has a weakness for going for each of the every Olympics and World Cup in football ever since he is charge of SAG as executive Director.
If football infrastructure shudders for attention, then GCA had not been thrusting the begging bowl in front of SAG officials and government. GCA coffers are overflowing, thanks to the cash-rich parent body Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) which has been doling out funds for GCA to build modern infrastructure in the state -- the indoors pitches in some of the cities of the state, Porvorim ground are cases which come to mind.It is time to act for the sports lovers in the state.
Sports minister Manohar (Babu) Azgaaonkar enough of your Gandhi market rhetoric, someone must come forward and restore to Gandhigiri. The tax payers had enough of your travel jaunts with PWD officials Rego and their wives visiting Dhabi and Doha, next for nothing, in a bid to understand and study sports infrastructure. It is time Joaquim and Churchill to buckle up their belts, the Azgaonkar’s, the Narvekar’s are trying to push mud from the place from where you are standing.
It is time football administrators and all those connected assert themselves. It is time cricket too has their stadium in Goa. It makes me laugh and cry at the same time for the abysmal state of affairs we are in a political system which cannot decision on their won, forcing people to approach the courts. People who are part of the government, who can make or break the government cannot make the government headed by Chief Minister Digamber Kamat toe their line. Or is it the case wherein Kamat is trying to play the pleasing game, a game which does not argue well for football, cricket and the sport loving spectators of Goa.
If the common man is increasingly forced to take recourse to the courts then why have a government in place. We could well abolish the political system and give the legislative function to the judiciary. Are we ready for the game.
TAIL PIECE:- We salute young 16-year-old Shubam Ulhas Naik, a budding cricketer, who passed away on Wednesday morning. He was suffering from a severe cricket-related eye ailment for the past six months. A cricket ball had hit him just around the eye area during an inter-school cricket match at Nehru stadium, Margao. A injury from which he never recovered with the best of the doctors unable to save his life.
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