MARGAO
All India Football Federation (AIFF) is very keen to promote Beach Soccer throughout the length and breadth of the country and President Kalyan Chaubey is counting on Goa to promote the game in a big way.
The former goalkeeper turned administrator was upbeat with the crowd response for the Beach Soccer matches of the National Games at Colva Beach.
“It is a fantastic ambience and nice to see such a crowd response, hope we can carry forward the FIFA agenda of promoting and spreading Beach Soccer in India,” said the former goalkeeper.
“I have some fantastic memories of Colva Beach and of Goa, it is the place where we used to do our pre-season training,” said the Kolkata-born Kalyan, who played for a few seasons in Goa besides his home stage West Bengal.
Kalyan said that AIFF is making all efforts to spread the game and the recent state level championship in Surat was in that direction.
“We had a national Beach Soccer championship in Surat in which 29 teams took part and at the ongoing National Games we made a request for inclusion of Beach Soccer which the Goa government agreed.”
Goa coach Bruno Coutinho is also optimistic of the future of Beach Soccer in the country and is looking forward to the Indian team taking part in more international competitions.
“I am sure with Kalyan Chaubey at the helm of affairs Beach Soccer will flourish and will get a lot of international exposure.”
At the local level seeing the huge turnout Goa Football Association President Dr Caitano Fernandes and local MLA Venzy Viegas are very keen to cash on the popularity of the game and spread its wings while also looking for new talent.
“We can host the international beach soccer championship and any Asian level football event which is entrusted to us by the All India Football Federation, but for that we will have to be supported by the Goa state government financially,” said Dr Caitano, whose Executive committee completed one-year last week.
“If international Beach Soccer events are held in Goa it will also promote sports tourism and also the state will get eyeballs in different participating countries with coverage from the print and television channels reaching the length and breadth of the world,” added the GFA President.
Venzy on the other hand said Colva will have an inter-ward beach Soccer tournament to give players from all over Colva a chance to compete and showcase their talent.
“We had discussion with the Colva sarpanch and other elected representatives of the village and we will work out the modalities of hosting the event in the coming weeks,” added the Benaulim MLA.
