IPFCA to submit I-League proposals to the AIFF

The member clubs of the I-League Professional Football Clubs Association (IPFCA) met yesterday in Vasco, Goa to discuss their next course of action and issues of mutual interest to the member clubs playing in the I-League.

The I-League Professional Football Clubs Association is made-up of 13 of the 14 participating teams of the top tier I-League with only the AIFF Developmental side, the Pailan Arrows, not being part of the club association as they aren't a proper football club.

The meeting was chaired by the IPFCA president Raj Gomes, who is the secretary of the Salgaocar FC, in the presence of the member clubs with IPFCA Secretary Chirag Tanna of Pune FC moderating the meeting.

After the meeting Raj Gomes told Goan newspaper Herald, "We dwelt on the I-league format for next season, Second Division I-league, grassroots and youth development, infrastructure, licensing criteria, marketing, broadcasting and several issues which are needed to be taken up stage-wise for raising the standard of Indian football when the I-League clubs are investing in crores. We also discussed on ways and means of making football a pan-Indian affair, rather than just being concentrated in few states like Goa and Bengal. Ultimately we need to work to make football a golden product."

"We will submit the report to the AIFF as we are partners in the development of football and work together, since the goal is the same. Football has to be run as business and we have to develop our own model which will spread the game throughout the country so that each state thrown its own home grown heroes which can then be exported, something which is not happening now," Raj Gomes added.