Date:17/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/17/stories/2008091761652200.htm

Sport - Football

Set the ball rolling, Imtiaz tells TFA

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The Director of Vision India from Asian Football Confederation, Imtiaz Rehman, has stressed the need to set the ball rolling for the Tamil Nadu project at the earliest.

He said the Tamil Nadu and Kerala projects were planned for a simultaneous start, but Kerala had gone ahead and one year on it had already become a wonderful chapter in grassroots development of the sport with tremendous support from the Government.

Benefits

Mr Rehman said the Manipur project, started three years ago, was doing well and the State was the beneficiary of around $75,000 from AFC annually. Tamil Nadu had a lot to gain from AFC and FIFA if the vision project went ahead on expected lines, he said.

During his two-day visit to the city, Mr Rehman met various officials of the newly elected body of the Tamil Nadu Football Association, led by President Cletus Babu, and urged for change of statutes in the State body’s constitution to allow provisions for paid officials — in addition to Chief Executive Officer, a development officer and a competition officer — so that the development schemes under the vision project could be executed smoothly.

He assured the TFA officials that expenses towards salary of these paid officials and other administrative spending would be borne by the AFC. Towards this end, he said AFC would earmark $20,000 annually. The TFA has sought a hike of this amount to $40,000 and Mr Rehman said he would get back on this later.

The AFC official was happy that the State league with an eight-team field (three from the city) had been finalised and tentatively this four-month home-and-away programme would be held in May/June 2009. Simultaneously, he was told, that a State under-11 league (boys and girls) involving schools would also be held.

Mr Rehman was accompanied by Yogesh Desai (also AFC) and Shaji Prabhakar (AIFF Vision India director). Later, according to P.K. Madhavan, the CEO of TFA, the officials met the Member Secretary of the SDAT, M.R. Mohan, for a preliminary discussion on the Government role in the project. More meetings have been planned.