“Goa wants to promote
football in the state. These ministers will see what are the infrastructure is
required, how crowd is controlled. Government considers this as an investment.”
Manohar Parrikar, Chief Minister, Goa
Great! Bingo!
After all, our dear beloved, frugal-styled IIT educated
engineer-turned-politician, is an Indian politicians.
So, today, he took on the ‘irrelevant’ opposition bravely
and came out strongly in the support of his government’s trip (tour/study
tour/junket/business tour – whatever you want to term it) to the FIFA World Cup
in Brazil
Well done, Mr. Chief Minister of the state where Football
has been declared the state game.
The eminent members of the group are a good mix to draw the
maximum mileage out of the junket so as to ‘convert/modify’ the Football
culture into a Brazilian extravaganza pepped up with a Brazilian version of the
Rio Carnival.
The six members of the group include Goa ’s
Sports Minister, Fisheries Minister and Power Minister and three other members
of the legislative assembly. The group composition has been formulated after
much deliberation keeping in mind the intended outcomes.
The Fisheries Minister has been tasked to suggest fish
types and other sea-foods to be included in the dietary regime of Goa soccer players to make them stronger and agile in
order to make them globally competitive.
The Power Minister would come with a report on how to
infuse more power into the playing style of Goa
soccer players on the line of the Brazilian football culture, something that
runs in every Brazilian’s vein.
Both of them would work in consultation with the Goa
Sports Minister.
The other three members have been tasked to assess the
cultural aspects like the craze for Football in Brazil
Whom the report will finally be addressed was doubtful
until now, but given his strong support today, the chief minister is going to
the chief examiner of the report.
What a grand plan and in just Rs. 89 Lakh! Frugal!
Sincere!
What a vision for a country that consistently ranks among
the lowest in the FIFA ranking (146, the latest one) – a country that, going by
its present state of affairs of Football, cannot, for decades, even think of
qualifying for the main draw of the FIFA World Cup!
From the abyss to the Zenith – only a visionary can dare
to scale directly from the low of Indian Football to the high of FIFA World Cup
– and Indian Football has found that visionary in the Goa
chief minister.
The task of the highly qualified members of the group who
have been rightly given preference over sports professionals and administrative
members of Goa’s sports fraternity is demanding we need to accept as they have
just a week or so (10 days probably) to carry out visits, collect data,
watching soccer in action, analysing the crowd management (as the CM says),
analysing the Brazilian Football culture and ‘observing and assessing’ the
associated cultural aspects.
Gosh!!
What is heartening and encouraging is that an ‘alleged’
past failure on this line did not deter the chief minister. According to a
report in the Times of India (June 12, 2014), a 2012 junket to England, with
four members of Brazil group, sent to study the FIM World Motocross
Championship to “explore the possibility of introducing motocross in Goa in
a big way and also explore the possibility of hosting international motocross
events in Goa in the future” (as the report says), has failed to produce
any ‘tangible’ outcome with the state even losing the contract of hosting one
round of FIM Motocross World Championship (as the report says).
But what a fighting spirit! The criticism didn’t discourage
him. Mr. Chief Minister is back. And he would have certainly incorporated the
elements from the learning into planning this one, as the available details (so
far) tell us.
©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com
