The legendary Salgaocar goalkeeper has been handed the post of GFDC chairman that was vacant for more than a year…
Newly appointed chairman of the Goa Football Development Council (GFDC), Brahmanand Sankhwalkar, has urged for transparency in the operations of the same.
The GFDC was conceptualised by former Chief Minister of Goa, late Manohar Parrikar, when he had declared football as the state sport in July 2012. The council since then was led by Dr. Rufino Monteiro who stepped down as chairman in November 2018.
Dr. Shrikant Ajgaonkar, brother of the state’s Sports Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar was appointed as deputy chairman but his term, too, expired. Without a council, there has been no GFDC meeting held after the one on August 29, 2018 and Sankhwalkar is eager to get the ball rolling post the Covid-19 lockdown.
“Being a GFDC member in Mr. Parrikar’s time when Dr. Rufino was the chairman, I visited a lot of centers. And despite being at Sesa Goa at the time, they (Sesa) also supported me. I was at Sesa Goa for 12 years and I really cherish my time with them,” the Goan Arjuna arwardee told Goal.
“When I met CM (Chief Minister, Pramod Sawant) for one of our Sesa functions, as the function was getting over he requested to have a word with me. After speaking with Mr. Sawant, he said ‘I want you to handle this’ and I instantly said yes and sent a message to my company (Sesa) and they agreed.”
The council has recently come under controversy with allegations of siphoning off of INR 1.15 crores of public funds in the name of football development but Sakhwalkar chose not to comment on it at the moment.
“That is a separate issue and a different department will handle that,: he said, “At the same time, we have to bear in mind that we are using funds from the government and we have to ensure that we utilise it properly. All I want is transparency in everything and the focus should be more on the grassroots and coaches. GFDC has constantly stressed on coaching education and I was one of the first persons to get my AFC ‘A’ License under their wing.
“We may train 5,000 or even 10,000 children and we may not get quality. May be around 10 players will get selected for residential training or other teams. Dempo, Salgaocar, Sporting Clube de Goa are doing a good job at their academies but for these thousands of children that we train, my first aim is to look after their education,” the former India international added.
The current 11-member council committee of GFDC will have Shankhwalkar as chairman, Shrikant Ajgaonkar as vice-chairman and Aleixo da Costa as the member secretary. Avertano Furtado, Bruno Coutinho, Lector Mascarenhas, Agnelo Fonseca, Shantaram Naik, Stanislaus D’Souza, Sanjiv Nagvenkar and Pradeep Chodankar will form the council committee of the GFDC council.
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