Goan football gone, going…….. down the drain

Goan football gone, going…….. down the drain

By Armstrong Vaz

Goan football is heading towards turbulent times. The alarm bells were ringing for long. The intensity has increased and reached its peak. Wilred Leisure has opened the floodgates of what is forecasted to be a tsunami.

Wilred’s pulling out from the ten-team Goa Professional League (GPL), which is due to start in August, is one of the first major setback for the new Executive Committee of Goa Football Association (GFA), which took charge on July 27.

The club pulled a fast one on GFA.  The company-sponsored club has a past, which no one likes to have against its name – match-fixing.  

In 2004, Curtorim Gymkhana, Sangolda Lighting Club, Wilred Leisure and Dona Paula SC brought shame to Indian and Goan football by fixing matches.

Two matches played, one in South Goa and the other in North of the state, saw an astonishing 118 goals being scored, in the play-off matches of the second division.

The club and its officials served the ban and are back in the top echelons of Goan football.

Wilred Leisure, which runs a number of on-land casinos at some of the star hotels in Goa, decision to pull out is an absolute shocker.

The impression that has had been circulating in football circles for long is that the club is flush with funds.  But if the funds story was true a few seasons back it does not hold good in the coming season.

So the question arises is how much funds does a GPL team need to run the show in Goa.  A couple of lakhs, at the minimum, said an official of a low-budget GPL club.

The GPL last season consisted of I-league clubs Sporting Clube, Dempo SC, Salgaocar SC besides Chruchill bros, Sesa Football Academy, Tuffi Laxmi, Wilred leisure, Goa Velha and St Cruz Club of Cavelossim (both village based clubs), and Margao SC (city based club)

The casino-funded club pulling out is just the tip of the iceberg. More trouble is in store for Goan football.

Reigning Federation Cup winners Churchill Bros, the only family-run club in India, is fishing is choppy waters.

For the first time in many years the club turned into a defaulter and did not take part in the Annual General Body meeting of GFA last month.

In May, the Varca-based club was axed with two other clubs for failing to fulfill AIFF's club licensing criteria.

 The grapevine has it that the clubs is yet to start this year’s practice session, although all other GPL clubs have done so some two weeks from this day. Indications are they will not start their training. The club has a host of internal issues to deal with, ranging from finance to administration.

The axe from the I-League is one good excuse for the club, struggling with finances and lack of sponsors, to make a quiet exit from the scene, say football lovers and fans associated with the club.

A coaching support staff statement said it all “there is no way the team is there. It is all finished.”

But this “finished” business does not seem to be a good omen for the players.

All the players have not been paid salary for several months. But the irony is no one has complained to GFA or to All India Football Federation about being denied salary. The players, some of them who have personal relationship with Elvis Gomes, are pinning their hopes on the new GFA president to bail them out of the present situation.

Like all Indian clubs, Churchill Bros do not have a sponsor and are having tough time to put the monies in place to run the show.

Churchill Bros funds for football, as everyone knows, came thorough sponsorship from well wishers and for some time from the mining revenue of Joaquim Alemao. But for the major part the Alemao brothers managed to get funds for the club through their political clout.

With the powerful bargaining power of politics no longer on their side they have been high and dry.The Alemao brothers are not ready to dip into their treasury to pay the club dues. The four-some from the Alemao clan contesting elections were banished from the political field, at least for five years by the Goan polity in the last assembly elections of 2012.

If Churchill Bros bane has been politics and drying of funds for football, Vasco SC the oldest club in the Goa League has had been fighting a different battle.

With rock-solid Noel Lima Leitao sudden death in 2009 the club from the port city has been going downhill in performance and sponsorship (funds).  The effect of the mining ban is having its effect on the club which has been playing in the Goa League, without relegation, since its inception.

And to top it all infighting, which surfaced on the eve of the GFA President’s election, over supporting its longtime supporter and financier Savio Messais, is a taking a toll on the club which Noel, the administrator-turned-TV-Commentator, used to affectionately call as the “People’s Club”.

Hopefully the People Club and the Family Club will fight the inflation blues and their related off field worries punching them goal bound shots away from their goals and keep their citadel intact.

But the lack of finances is not only affecting just the top division of Goan football, the ripple effect is felt at the other three divisions –first, second and third. The challenge now is turn around the sick loss making “football factory” into a hen which lays the golden egg.

Does the new Executive Committee have any plans to revamp the whole business model of Goan football which hereto has been depended on the gate collections money to fill its coffers?

Most of the 170-odd clubs are looking to GFA for doles to bail them out and the Goa Football Development Council is the milking cow. 

The milk will flow for another three years and we are not sure if the cow will be able to give milk thereafter. 

So let’s prepare for a rainy day.