Kerala announce Santosh Trophy squad

The Kerala Football Association president K.M.I. Mather and secretary K.P. Sunny today announced the state's 20 member squad for the upcoming 65th Santosh Trophy in Assam. Seasoned midfielder Bijesh Ben has been named the state teams captain, which will be coached by M. Rajeev Kumar.

Kerala will go into the Santosh Trophy with a rather inexperienced side with no player from Viva Kerala, while there are also young district players in the squad.

The 65th edition of the Santosh Trophy will be held from May 6 to 30 across Assam in the seven cities of Guwahati, Nagaon, Mangaldoi, Tinsukia, Shivsagar, Kokrajhar and Bongalgaon. In this years edition Kerala have been placed in Cluster 4 along with Jammu&Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chandigarh in the preliminary stage.


KERALA

Goalkeepers
Joby Joseph (Travancore Titanium), Shabeer P.M. (Josco FC), Noufal (Kozhikode)

Defenders
Johnson N. (State Bank of Travancore), Nawaz (Josco FC), Sajith T. (Josco FC), B.T. Sarath (State Bank of Travancore), Satheesh (Kollam), Surjith V.V. (Kerala State Electricity Board)

Midfielders
Bijesh Ben (Central Excise), Martin John (State Bank of Travancore), Rahul P. (Kerala Police), Muhammed Rasi (Kerala State Electricity Board), Sumesh N. (State Bank of Travancore), Vinod (Travancore Titanium)

Forwards
Firoz K. (Kerala Police), Rakesh K. (Kerala State Electricity Board), Kannan R. (AGS), Sumesh A.M. (Eagles FC), Usman (Malabar United FC)

Officials
M. Rajeev Kumar (Coach), Solly Xavier (Assistant Coach), Fazil (Physio)

Kerala FA amends statutes

The Kerala Football Association held a special Annual General Meeting yesterday at the Mas Hotel Auditorium in Kochi to discuss and decide on the recommendations of the AFC's Vision Asia team to change their statutes to professionalise the state FA.

The Kerala FA adopted the new statutes which is a key step towards professionalising the administration of football in the south Indian state. One of the elements is to appoint a paid General Secretary to organise and run football in the state. Kerala is now the second state after Goa to adopt the new statutes.

But not all issues are sorted regarding the amendments. Therefore the Kerala FA general body has authorised the KFA president K.M.I. Mathur to hold talks with the All India Football Federation about the voting rights and size of the general body plus the time frame of implementation.

Currently the KFA general body has seven members from each of the 14 districts plus the president, secretary and treasurer. This bring the number to 101 members in total. This number will come down as under the new system each district will only send in three member to the general body, a total of only 42 members. The new executive committee will be made-up of 21 member instead of a number of close to 40 currently.

By accepting the amendments the Kerala FA is close to completing Phase 1 of the Vision Asia programme. The first phase covers governance of the football association, including its statutes, governing bodies, general secretariat, membership, standing committees, judicial bodies and administration.