The Lusofonia Games 2014 - A boon for Goan sports

All sports aficionados in India know about the Olympic Games, World Cup (events) and the Commonwealth Games. But how many in India have heard about the Lusofonia Games? Very few indeed!

The Lusofonia Games, in a structure similar to the Commonwealth Games, are meant for the community of Portuguese-speaking countries and also others where there are significant Portuguese communities or that have a common past with Portugal. On account of this, Goa (India), being a former Portuguese colony, got affiliation to ACOLOP (Association of the Portuguese Speaking Olympic Committees) as an associate member and had the honour of hosting the 3rd edition of the Lusofonia Games from 18th Jan to 29th Jan 2014.

It is for this reason that Goa, and not India, should have participated in these games. Imagine what would have happened if China had to send their national players because Macau is now part of China. Except football, all other sports had players from the rest of the country, thus defeating the very purpose of the games.

In all, there were only 12 countries participating in the Lusofonia Games. Out of the 12, only two countries, i.e. Portugal and Brazil are sports powerhouses. The moment these two countries decided not to participate, especially in football, the games lost their lustre.

Former sports minister and now vice president of the BJP Shri Wilfred Mesquita called the Lusofonia Games a big farce just a day after Goa (India) was celebrating its 3-2 victory over Mozambique in the finals. He could be right to some extent as there were just three teams in the men’s volleyball competition and all three were assured medals even before they played. But in football it was the state defeating a country and that is by far, no mean feat.

The Government of Goa burnt the midnight oil to raise the required infrastructure in a record time of just over a year and purely from this point of view, the Lusofonia Games could be termed as a huge success and a boon for Goan sportsmen for generations to come. The postponement of the games gave breathing space to the government to complete five world-class venues for all games like table tennis, basketball, volleyball, football, etc. Out of the five, two football stadiums were refurbished and upgraded to international standards in a record time of little over a year.

The Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Fatorda, Margao, built in 1989 in a record time of six months, is Goa’s pride where both football and cricket international matches were played in the past. The other stadium, Tilak Maidan, Vasco, is the oldest football stadium in Goa and has been the home ground for Goa’s two favourite teams: Salgaocar FC and Vasco SC. Goa now have two floodlit stadiums. A couple of years ago the government was struggling to install floodlights at the the JPN stadium at Fatorda, Margao due to which teams like Dempo SC and Churchill Bros had to play the AFC matches outside Goa.

For any game to develop, talent and proper infrastructure are the basic requirements. In football, we have talent in abundance and now the Lusofonia Games have given Goa the much required state-of-the-art infrastructure. Floodlit stadiums would make it possible to organize I League matches late in the evening, thus enabling the players to perform at their peak and supporters to come in bigger numbers. Live telecast of late evening matches enable more people to view matches. These stadiums will also help Goa to organize some of the matches of the U 17 FIFA World Cup to be held in India in 2017.

As hosts, India will be competing in the U 17 FIFA World Cup and this could be a dream come true. How else could India qualify for this world event? Japan and South Korea regularly qualify for the junior world event as ‘grassroots football’ has been their focus. The grassroots and the underage FIFA World Cups ( U17, U 20) should be targeted by India instead of spending crores of rupees on the senior team and dreaming about qualifying for the FIFA World Cup.

The U-17 FIFA World Cup should be our dream and we need to take this dream to the youngsters and give them belief and hope. For this, we need to start from the grassroots. Thanks to Chief Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar, Goan football is on the right track. His brainchild, the ‘Goa Football Development Council’ has opened up several training centres for the U-12 age group and around two thousand boys and girls are reported to be training at these centres. It’s good to see hundreds boys and girls being trained at even remote places like Pernem, Sulcorna and Collem in Goa.

The formation of the Goa Football Development Council, a government organization, and the state-of-the-art sports infrastructure now in place thanks to the Lusofonia Games 2014, could well be the turning point of Goan and Indian football and sports in general.