Lusofonia Games - 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, like the Commonwealth games, are meant for the community of Portuguese Language 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 3rdedition 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 games 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 its 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 the 3-2 victory over Mozambique in the football final. 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 it is by far, no mean feat.

The Government of Goa burnt midnight oil to raise the required infrastructure in a record time of just over a year and purely from this point of view, 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 standard in a record time of little over a year. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru stadium Fatorda, Margao, built in 1989 in a record time of six months, is Goa’s pride where both international football and cricket 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 has two floodlight stadiums. A couple of years back the government was struggling to install floodlights at the JPN stadium at Fatorda, Margao due to which teams like Dempo SC and Churchill Bros had to play their 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 ‘Lusofonia Games’ have given Goa the much required state of the art infrastructure. Flood light stadiums would make it possible to organize I-League matches late in the evening thus enabling players to perform at their peak and supporters to come in bigger numbers. Live telecast of late evening matches would 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 junior FIFA World Cups ( U-17, 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 2,000 boys and girls are reported to be training at these centres. It’s good to see hundreds of 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 2014 Lusofonia Games, could be the turning point of Goan and Indian football and sports in general.