Sport - Football

Babu’s biggest goals

CHENNAI: “Raising the standards and popularity of football will broadly form our goal,” said S. Cletus Babu, the newly elected President of the Tamil Nadu Football Association.

“It is our conception that football has to be made a sport of the masses and it will be our concerted efforts to revive the sport from the grassroots-level. Before long we will also bid for the Santosh Trophy national championship in Tamil Nadu,” he said at a meet the press programme on Monday.

Babu, who hails from Tirunelveli, leads a team of officials of whom none is from Chennai. He dismissed the suggestion that there were any differences between Chennai and other districts, saying that “everything was forgotten once the election was over.”

It would be the endeavour of the new TFA body to work in close cooperation with all district associations as also past President (C.R. Visswanathan) and Secretary (T.R. Govindarajan) to ensure the various development projects, in particular the Vision India project of the Asian Football Confederation, were made a success, he added.

The new secretary, R. Sadatcharam, from Madurai said that there was no plan to shift the headquarters of TFA from the City. “We propose to appoint a full time manager who will do the coordination job,” he said.

Barring a few, all other new office-bearers were present apart from Govindarajan, who introduced the new faces of the TFA to the media.

As per the hand out given on the occasion, TFA has plans to start its various activities from August, including the proposed state league and inter-district league as per AFC’s suggestions. — Special Correspondent

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu