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Western India’s soccer powerhouse and tourist destination is all set to kick off a Goa Football Coaches Association to protect the interests of its coaches, as well as to promote coach development. A meeting has been called tomorrow morning at the Nehru Stadium in Fatorda, South Goa , to launch the new venture and to also elect the office bearers.
“All coaches who have done the Asian Football Confederation A, B, and C or any other license course and who have been serving football for the last five years in football coaching, are requested to attend,” said Dempo Sports Club coach Armando Colaco, one of the prime movers of the idea, in a press release.
It is expected that the five-time I-League winner and Dempo Sports Club general secretary will himself be elected as chief of the organization. Quite a lot of spadework has already been done to get thing going and to shore up the unit before the launch.
Goa reportedly has 19 ‘A’ license coaches including Colaco, Savio Medeira (recently appointed assistant to national coach Wim Kovermans), Derrick Pereira (Pune FC), Peter Valles ( Salgaocar), Mauricio Afonso (assistant coach, Dempo) etc., and any number of B and C license holders. Almost all the big guns are expected to haul up at the meeting tomorrow, and some may even get themselves elected onto the managing committee.
Broaching the subject in a conversation with this writer at the BPS Club in Margao after the AGM of Salcette FC last Sunday, Colaco said that the main aim is to enhance coaching education in the state. “We want to bring the best of foreign coaching to Indian shores and also plan in the long term to invite the world’s most famous managers and players for guest lectures,” he revealed.
Another aim is to ensure the welfare of coaches, who are at the mercy of whimsical managements when results go awry, in the short term and also face various other problems in the long term, Colaco stated.
The logo of the association has already been finalized, according to a report, and it consists of a clenched fist with a football. Club owners and the state association may well see red!
