AFC team satisfied with Goan I-league clubs

The AFC team, who were on a two days visit to Goa, were satisfied with the infrastructure and administrative set up of all the three Goan I-League clubs, as part of the assessment criteria for classification as professional clubs.

The AFC team who left this morning to Bangalore after visiting Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune earlier will present their report of all the I-League clubs at the AIFF Office on November 2 and inform all the teams about their shortcomings which they will have to rectify before December 31, failing which they will not be eligible to take part for I-League 2011-12.

The AFC club licensing criteria says that a club should have a licensed coach, an owned ground or at least on lease, it has to be a corporate entity and should have a junior programme also.

The I-League CEO Sunanda Dhar, who along with senior manager of the I-League Sujesh Rajan who is assisting the six members AFC team said clubs like Air India, HAL and ONGC, which are Public sector Undertakings (PSUs) as they have been struggling for some time now to form a company that could run the club.

But, according to Dhar, the Clubs are close to clearing the hurdle. Dhar, who visited the office of Air-India and ONGC is satisfied with the work done by both the clubs. He said the clubs have been working on some clues provided by Mahajan Vasudevan, sports lawyer from AFC's legal department.

The AFC will have a second round of inspection in January 2011 and explain the clubs who met the criteria what needs to be done to merit a place among Asia's elite.

By March next year, we will come to know which teams have fulfilled the criteria and qualified for the next I-League.

The AIFF executive committee will meet immediately after that and ratify the decision, said Dhar.

The six member AFC team include: Tokuaki Suzuki (Director of competitions), Maksat Glychmamedov (Development manager for professional Football), Steve Kim (Communications manager),

Bryan Kuan Weehooang (Director of internal auditing department), Khan Hung Medng (Development officer of coach education department) and Mahajan Vasudevan (Sports lawyer of legal department).