After organising 826 matches in seven months, GFA to toast successful season with Awards Night

Panaji: While campaigning for the Goa Football Association’s election to the president’s post last year, Caetano Fernandes made plenty of promises.

He told the clubs he would streamline competitions, bring in professionalism, pump in money to make up for the financial deficit and ensure that Goan football breathes easy, again.

“What I thought was impossible when I took over, became possible,” Caetano told reporters on Friday. “We have completed 90 % of our promises, despite taking over when there was a negative financial balance of Rs 71 lakh.”

The GFA completed all of its 14 Leagues before the season ended on May 31, 2023. It organised 826 matches during the course of the seven months since the new committee took charge to complete all Leagues.

“At first, we thought this was unachievable,” said GFA vice president Jonathan de Souza. “On an average, we organised four matches a day and there were days when we organised 16 matches, including a record number of floodlight games.”

The GFA spent Rs 1.3 crore towards organising the Leagues this season.

According to vice president Antonio Pango, much of this was possible due to the financial support provided by the president. His company sponsored leagues, renovated the office, assured financial backing whenever required, and impressed upon the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) to spare some of the grounds.

“Next season will be even more challenging. According to the new system implemented by the AIFF, there will be over 2000 matches. We will need money, but we are ready to tackle all the financial hurdles,” said the GFA president.

To celebrate what has been a “successful season”, GFA will organise an Awards Night on Saturday (June 3) to felicitate the achievements of players and officials at the Taleigao Community Hall.

There will be awards for the best players in each of the age-group categories – under-13, under-15, under-18 and under-20. Other awards include men’s player of the year, women’s player of the year, coach of the year, team of the year, best referee, best assistant referee, special achievement award and lifetime achievement award.

“Our next aim is to develop land at Duler so that the association can become self-sustainable. More importantly, the (artificial) turf for Duler has already been ordered. It will cost us Rs 1.8 crore and the government will help,” said Caetano.

Replacement of the 11-year-old turf at Duler was among Caetano’s major election promise.



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