‘Cash for votes’ creeps into Goan football

 

‘Cash for votes’ creeps in to Goan football

Some will call it moral bankruptcy, others will point out it as a lack for strategic plan but for a silent majority it is plain bribery.

The cancer of ‘cash for votes’ is slowly but surely creeping into the Goa Football Association (GFA) elections. After all football is part of Goan life and it is but natural for all the good things (read bad things) to find way into the football system of Goa.

Goa polity has been used to political parties and candidates doling out liquor, cash and other goodies in the run up to the state and assembly elections for the last few decades.

The last elections of the GFA Executive Committee held four years back was the first time money was paid and promised to the clubs by one of the contestant who lost the president’s election to Srinivas Dempo of Dempo SC.

Dempo for the records did not indulge in any unfair practices but won on merit the confidence of the clubs.

Some of the clubs complained, during the last elections that they were promised money by GFA but they did not get any money from them.

Here is what Keizar Martins President of Orlim Sports Club had to say in an interview with The Goan: “Running a club is tough business. We need approximately a lakh every year to run this club. It is a constant battle. We have to conduct tiatrs and fairs to generate funds. We have had politicians contributing money. Churchill Alemao had provided us with two lakhs last year and we conducted an inter-village tournament named after his parents. Players today demand money for every match. We have to pay them Rs 500 per match. Where will all this money come from? The GFA promised to give us one lakh every year. Nothing has been forthcoming. The cost of running a club increases every year.”

So who was the GFA official who promised them money and for what is a million dollar guess.

And now the ball is in Elvis Gomes court, the newly elected president of GFA.

The clubs say they want money and “that is the reason we have elected Elvis”, says Keizar in a facebook comment on the Goa for Goans forum after the election of the new Executive Committee of GFA.

Elvis, heads the Goa Football Development Council (GDFC) a government funded body which has been on a centre-starting spree in the state, setting up some 25 odd of them in the last two years.

The GDFC has come with a draft football policy in 2013, which is yet to be implemented, and which was unveiled in match last year. One of the suggestion in the draft policy is setting up a one crore fund.

“It is therefore proposed to set up Football for Freedom Fund with an initial contribution of Rs. 1 crore from the Government. A high power Committee under the GFDC will administer this fund. Contributions will be accepted from various bodies private, public and individual,” according to the Goa Football Policy draft

When that fund will be operational remains to be seen. 

But till that time Elvis will have to keep many a ‘hungry and angry’ birds like the president of Orlim Sports Club happy.

How he will do it for the next four years will be an ultimate test of his organizational skills.

And it is not just the case of Orlim SC but more than 170-odd clubs all who are vying for a slice of the GFA and GDFC pie.

GFA has over 170 clubs registered with them and for every four years they meet on the last Sunday of July to elect an executive committee. Thereafter they meet once every year on the same Sunday to deliberate and discuss issues involving Goan football.

The ‘July Sunday’ is the only time the low rung Goan clubs can rub shoulders with the top executive of the state association. For most part of the years the clubs are non-entity has no say in the way football is developed and marketed in the state.

For most village clubs in Goa football development is an alien thing. 

Question them about youth development programmes and they shot back saying “which of the clubs in Goa have youth development programmes,” Keizar

If one goes by Keizar’s assertions then the all the Under-15, Under-17, Under-19 and Under-20 tournaments conducted in Goa by GFA are a farce.

But for the records most of the clubs do not have any youth development programmes. 

The clubs still function the old traditional way, aiming for footballers to develop on their own.

But a few inter village clubs are an expectation. 

So it is time GFA identify the clubs and set a specific yearly fund for their youth development programmes and also monitor their progress of such clubs.

It will not be right thing to dole cash left and right for non-performing clubs that will be sending a wrong signal.

DFB development plan of 2000 - Germany’s path to success in Brazil

DFB development plan of 2000 - Germany’s path to success in Brazil

Germany’s 2014 World Cup success has not come overnight. The national team has been building towards this excellence since 2000, when it could not advance from the group stage in the European tournament.

The result of the fall out was a development plan.  A plan, which has had been identifying and training athletic youngsters in 366 districts. The system produced the wave of players in their mid-20’s who excelled in Brazil.

The German system is important because there is a direct line from the development plan of the German federation, DFB, and some of the celebrity coaches from Germany plying their trade elsewhere.  

Germany rarely needs a renewal not with three world cup won, but that does not mean success will come on a platter, they had to work hard for it. Germany’s surges ahead taking its core from the DFB program.

The wealthy national league, the Bundesliga, has kept most national players at home, challenging the Spanish, English and Italian leagues as the best in the world. Imports from Africa and Latin America and Europe fill in spots on the German clubs, but good German players do not rust away at home.

The Spanish ‘tiki taka’ style of play and their development plan was touted as the best after their success in the last world Cup and with Spanish clubs winning silverware in club competitions, now the focus is on the German.

With DFB plan producing at full tilt none can stop the marauding Germans.

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.