The three member sub-committee, which was formed to recommend the football centres wherein the artificial turfs could be laid, met on Friday evening at the All India Football Federation (AIFF) House, Delhi...
FIFA’s ‘Win in India with India’ programme aims at developing Indian football at the elite level with the primary focus being on the infrastructure. As part of this scheme, FIFA has promised India 11 astro-turfs while the Indian FA had earlier written to the concerned state associations to help them identify the land.
The AIFF sent a letter dated 21st May ’09 to the concerned state associations for the land required:
1) Land should be leased free of cost for a period of 10 years to the AIFF.
2) AIFF will enter a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the owner of the land, with the state association being the consenting party.
3) In case, the astro-turfs are laid wherein the I-League games are being played, then the field will be available to the AIFF and the I-League teams as well.
The Emergency Committee, which met last month, formed a three member team of Sunil Bharadwaj, Inder Singh and Larsing Ming Sawyan to discuss the potential venues where the turfs could be laid.
It is learnt that eight football centres were chosen, of which five have complied with AIFF’S list of pre-requisites.
AIFF general secretary, Alberto Colaco is expected to send the list of venues to FIFA when he leaves for Zurich for the meeting along with the Indian sports minister, M.S.Gill.
Source: Goal.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Monday 10 August 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 2
Not having good playing field is NOT the problem of Indian Football, it is the federation itself who isn't really bothered about football. They have got the wrong priorities as this one shows - astro turf is NOT going to improve football in the country, instead it will just waste money for the gain of the turf lobby and really makes one doubt about the intentions of AIFF.
Artificial turf is definitely not an answer to all our problems. And yes, it involves BIG money!
But this particular project is financed COMPLETELY by FIFA and all activities related to selection of contractors, project implementation, training on maintenance and turf care, etc will be taken care by FIFA. The only financial implication (if any) is that the stadiums/fields (mostly owned by Government organizations) where artificial turf is to be implemented has to be leased for free to the AIFF for a period of 10 years. Which means you get to see quality football action on playing surfaces of international standrads!
For example, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi is more or less a soon-to-be 'white elephant'. Nobody wants to use the stadium anymore. The GCDA is not bothered, BCCI has no interest, the I-League teams from Kerala have no interest...well yeah if its ok with football fans like us to see it become a monument or being rarely used for stage show, filmfare awards, etc (even for that, i think the Chandrashekar Nair Stadium in TVM is doing better)...let people who make a hue and cry about artificial turf coming to Kerala prevail. Or are you waiting for a miracle, whereby, the GCDA will redo the turf at JN Stadium?
I guess...what we need is a monument as we will not accept something that is coming your way for free.