Women’s league, referees’ development top GFA agenda

Goa Football Association (GFA) has approved a new league for women for the season 2017-18 comprising of eight teams which will be fielded by the professional clubs playing in the Goa Professional League. The league is scheduled to start in the month of October.

| JULY 17, 2017, 01:04 AM IST
Football body to host private women’s national tourney at Dulerrrthe goan I networkrPanajirrThe Executive Committee of the GFA met on Saturday under the chairmanship of President Elvis Gomes in the city where the proposal to hold the league was formally approved. Gomes said that Women’s League was on the cards for a long time and the Women’s Sub Committee was very keen to support the league. rAccording to GFA, the available players are likely to be pooled in a draft from where teams will be expected to draw them. He further informed that the football body will also host an eight-team national level women’s tournament starting from August 5-13 at Duler in partnership with Discover Football, an organisation that promotes women’s rights. rMeanwhile, the newly appointed national women’s coach Maymol Rocky was felicitated by the committee. The GFA also ratified its decision to approve a tournament as the season opener in aid of elderly sportspersons organised by Dempo Sports Club in association with the recently formed Association for Well-being of Elderly Sportspersons (AWES). rContinuing with the programme for development of new entrant referees’ in the State, the GFA announced that 48 new referees will be drafted for duty from the season 2017-18 within the next two weeks as they are undergoing training under the guidance of Anthony John D’Costa and Goculdas Nagvenkar. r“A lot of graduate students have shown interest in refereeing. As soon as the current course gets over, another batch of 50 new entrant referees will be trained so as to increase the pool of available referees and infuse new blood,” Gomes said. rIn the meanwhile, it has been decided that the Centralised Registration System shall be made applicable for every player registered with the GFA. Earlier, the system was applicable only to the I-League players. With this move, every player from a young age till retirement will be tracked through the system and it will help in seamless transfers from club to club and also State to State. rThe GFA also resolved not to agree to the inclusion of foreign players in the youth leagues in the country. It may be recalled that recently there were reports that foreign players would be allowed to play in the youth leagues. The members were of the unanimous view that inclusion of foreign players at the youth level is not going to help Indian football to grow. rThe GFA also approved the Audited Final Accounts for the year 2016-17 to be placed before the General Body at the Annual General Body Meeting. The GFA further informed that the approval to receive foreign funding under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) was still valid and that the filing of returns has been taken up. “Since there were no foreign remittances, the accounts section failed to file nil returns, which were compulsory. The same has been rectified,” Gomes said.
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