PANAJI
One of the most influential figures in Goan football, Sporting Clube de Goa boss Peter Vaz passed away on Thursday, plunging the State's football fraternity into mourning.
Vaz, a prominent real estate and hospitality entrepreneur who turned his Models Group into one of the leading business groups of Goa, died aged 53 in the wee hours of Christmas day after battling complications from Covid-19 in a Bengaluru hospital. His funeral is fixed for Sunday afternoon at the Caranzalem parish church, family sources said.
Vaz who contracted the virus in mid-November had developed lung complications and was shifted from a private hospital to the Goa Medical College and Hospital last week after a spell of home isolation. His condition turned critical and a team of doctors from a Bengaluru super-speciality hospital was flown down to attend to him. He was then taken in an air-ambulance to the Bengaluru facility last Sunday but succumbed there around 2 am on Christmas day. He is survived by his wife Natty, a daughter and a son.
A first-generation entrepreneur, Vaz was an alumnus of prominent city school Don Bosco High School and also the Government Polytechnic, Altinho. He made his foray into top-league football in Goa and the country when he promoted the well-known club -- Sporting Clube de Goa.
While on the rectangle he was a total football aficionado, in the drawing rooms of the game's administration, Vaz had a fierce anti-establishment reputation aggressively calling as he did, a spade a spade. He constantly took on Goa's and India's top football brass over multiple matters.
The high point of his pro-game crusade in the football's administrative ecosystem was when he contested an epic election but narrowly lost out to mining scion Shrinivas Dempo, for the Goa Football Association's (GFA) presidency in 2010.
Dempo reacted with shock to Vaz' passing away. "My friend Peter Vaz gone too soon. A self-made man and first-generation entrepreneur who loved football with a passion. RIP. Goan football will never be the same without you," Dempo tweeted.
