PANAJI
Goa Football Association's plan to launch a women's football league has come as a big relief to India women's football coach, Maymol Rocky. The former India international-turned-coach has seen the girls from the state struggle to make it to the top due to unavailability of the right platform. However, the times are changing and Maymol believes that the upcoming league, can prove to the perfect opportunity for the girls to come out and show their mettle.
Currently in Manipur to oversee the sub-junior nationals, Maymol expressed her happiness as the Goa Football Association (GFA) prepares to launch the women's football league at the start of next week.
"It's a really good idea! Girls will get to play. I think this is the right time to start GFA women's league so that we can compete with other states in India. So far, my concern has been that we have potential players here, but the girls were not getting the right platform," Maymol told The Goan.
While Goa has been one of the few states of India to have a strong connection with football, the bond has been limited to the men's game. Women's football, meanwhile, had been neglected in the best part of last couple of decades. Only competitions regularly held in the girls section, are courtesy DSYA school events and Goa University via its annual inter-college football tournament.
"Women's league has not been happening in Goa since a long time. Other states like Manipur and Odisha have regular leagues for girls. These states may have only five or six clubs, but they are conducting women's league regularly. That is the reason why, their girls have developed well," explained Maymol, who knows everything about state grassroots football culture having been a coach with Sports Authority of Goa.
"Nevertheless, if Goa is starting women's league now; it will surely develop the standard of women's football in the state. Most of the girls will get more exposure, more experience and the much-needed opportunity for youngsters to come out and play football in a competitive club arena, taking them beyond their school/HSS and college teams," opined Maymol, who has a tight schedule at the national and international level to look forward to pre-qualifying for IWL, Senior Nationals, Indian Women's League.and the all-important Asian Games 2018.
In a broader perspective, Indian women's football is in need of a bigger and better talent pool. The only way this can happen is to provide opportunities to more and more girls to play. Maymol agrees.
"Not only Goa, we need more such tournaments for women throughout the country. Due to lack of competition, women's football in India is developing at a very slow pace. However, the All India Football Federation has introduced IWL and slowly, all the states are starting to develop women's football," asserted Maymol.
The GFA-Vedanta Women's Football League will be launched on Monday with around 120 players to be drafted in six participating teams. While the idea of the competition is what the doctor ordered, the execution will be a big challenge as such leagues have to be sustained, growing bigger in terms of number of teams and improve in quality, to reach the desired goal.
