‘Green brigade’ refrains from sending its senior teams to Pro-league, U-18, U-20 tournaments
PANAJI
In clear signs that it is exiting mainstream competitive football and perhaps involvement in the game altogether after nearly seven decades of association, Salgaocar FC has refrained from entering its team in the senior top league of the Goa Football Association (GFA) – Goa Pro-league.
GFA sources said, Salgaocar FC has only sent their entries for its Under-13 and Under-15 competitions and had not sent in the entry form of its senior team or for its U-18 and U-20 tournaments.
Arguably one of the most popular and successful of the handful of Goa’s football clubs, the fading off of the ‘green brigade’ from the soccer field is expected to leave a legion of its loyal fans crestfallen.
Efforts to contact Shivanand Salgaocar, the club’s current owner for an official version did not fructify but multiple sources in Goa’s football ecosystem including the GFA have confirmed the development although none wanted to come on record.
The Vasco-based club was established back in 1956 by the patriarch of the house of Salgaocars, late V M Salgaocar and shot to prominence at the national level instantly.
It went to become a powerhouse of Indian football and was the nursery of not just both of Goa’s football Arjuna awardees – Brahmanand Sankhwalkar and Bruno Coutinho – but shaped the careers of dozens of footballers who like the Sankhwalkar -Coutinho duo donned the country’s colours and also went on to skipper the national team. Mauricio Afonso and Savio Medeira are some examples.
But with the advent of a new structure introduced by the administrators at All India Football Federation (AIFF) in 2016 in the form of the IPL-styled Indian Super League (ISL), it was only time before clubs like Salgaocar would fade away from the top-tier of the football ecosystem.
Salgaocar FC took the first regressive step back in 2016 itself, when it withdrew from the I-league with the AIFF leaving no entry-window in the ISL.
It was the torch-bearer of Goa’s domination of Indian club football, becoming the first from this tiny State to win the Federation Cup in 1988 and the National Football League a decade later.
Interestingly, while it will not participate in the GFA’s pro-league tournament this year, Salgaocar FC has given its entry for the U-13 and U-15 tournaments.
It is seemingly a replication of a very similar decision to keep its umbilical chord with football unbroken taken by another Goan corporate soccer team, Sesa Goa FC, over two decades ago.
Sesa Goa FC too had abruptly disbanded its senior team in 1999-2000 after it failed to qualify for the NFL but remained invested in football by setting up the Sesa Football Academy which continues to nurture soccer talent to date.
Meanwhile, former GFA president and Congress leader Elvis Gomes has cited the development of Salgaocar FC’s withdrawal from the professional league (senior division) as an ominous sign and urged the GFA and the State government to step in to preserve Goa’s football culture.
As a top bureaucrat, Gomes was instrumental in the then Manohar Parrikar government declaring football as the ‘State Sport’ and establishing the Goa Football Development Council of which he was the first CEO.
“It is one of the biggest setbacks for Goan football. Government and GFA must intervene,” Gomes said.
