Srinivas Dempo new Goa FA president

Dempo Group of Companies chairman, Srinivas Dempo, was yesterday elected as the new president of the Goa Football Association. In the vote for president Mr. Dempo won 85 to 75 against Peter Vaz, the president of Sporting Clube de Goa, after a long and hard fought election campaign, unseen in Goan football. Mr. Dempo has been elected as president for four years under the new constitution of the Goa FA, which complies with the statues of the All India Football Federation and the Asian Football Confederation.

The general elections held at Hotel Mandovi in Panaji with all 160 GFA registered clubs attending and casting their votes, a first in the history of Goan football. It was a high voltage affair, but in the end Mr. Dempo prevailed with a margin of only 10 votes. But the elections did throw-up some surprises as not all persons were elected who were favoured by the winning presidents faction plus new faces have made the governing body to hopefully infuse some fresh blood into the GFA.

Lavinio Rebello was elected vice-president from North Goa, while Elvis Gomes won the elections of vice-president from South Goa. The 14 member executive committee will be made-up of winners from the four zones. They are Schubert Furtado, Benjamin Silva, Anthony Pango, Benedicto Bishut Temudo (all Salcete); Lawrence Gomes, Prakash Naik, Savio Messias (all Mormugao); Babli Mandrekar, Alirio Lobo, Uday Lingudkar, Gajanand Kerkar (all Bardez); and Welwyn Menezes, Sanjiv Nagvekar, Anju Albuquerque (all Ilhas).

For Mr. Dempo and the whole new executive body there is loads of work ahead to take Goan football forward. And amongst the key issues will be the need address the infrastructure situation at the professional and amateur level, the reorganisation of inter-village football in the state and the further development of youth football. So be it the further development of Duler ground, the floodlights at the Nehru Stadium in Margao and the rebuilding of the Campal Stadium or the other issues, there is loads to be done.

And as one of the first steps a new paid General Secretary would have to be appointed to run football in the state. Outgoing honorary secretary Savio Messias is now an executive committee member.