An Asian Football Confederation (AFC) delegation visited the Viva Kerala home ground and training facilities at Kannur on Saturday and expressed serious concerns over several issues that needs to be solved quickly, if the team is to stay as a part of the I-League.
The AFC team included Tokuaki Suzuki (Director of Competition at the AFC), Maskat Glychmamcdor (Development Manager of Professional Football Department, AFC), Steve Hyang (Communication Manager of Clubs Competition AFC); Brian Kuan Wee Hoong (Director of Internal Audit Department) and Mahajan Vasudevan Nair (Sports Lawyer of Legal Department). They were accompanied by Sunando Dhar, the I-League CEO and Sujesh Rajan, the Senior Manager.
The AFC team was visiting all the clubs participating in the 2010-11 season of the I-League and presented their findings at a meeting in the AIFF Football House at New Delhi. Viva Kerala's Manager Prashanthan K represented the club at the AFC workshop.
Viva Kerala's assistant coach Bino George told FootballKerala.com that the AFC delegation was clearly unhappy with the facilities available at the Jawahar Municipal Stadium, Kannur. Jawahar Stadium is one of the three grounds disallowed by the AFC on the November 3 meeting. The other stadiums which had the same fate were the Cooperage, Mumbai and the Barasat Stadium, Kolkata.
The team on the visit to Kannur also expressed their concerns over the condition of dressing rooms of the players, the medical facilities at the stadium and the playing pitch itself. Tokuaki Suzuki also unapproved the facilities the Jawahar stadium had to offer for the press and the media.
"They were clearly unhappy with the facilities here at the stadium. But, the Kannur Football Association has promised the team that the facilities will be improved before Viva's first home match in the I-League," said Bino George. This is the first time the team will be playing their home matches at Kannur.
Viva Kerala and HAL are the only teams left who haven't submitted their auditing reports to the AIFF. Viva Kerala had appointed AFC A License holder PK Kunhikrishnan as their head coach in order to meet the AFC criteria.
Only five teams have managed to fulfill the AFC criteria. Other clubs which include the likes of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal which failed the inspection will be given another two months time to act according to AFC's suggestions before the team revisits the clubs in January, 2011.
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Wednesday 3 November 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 1
not at all surprised