FC Goa owners choose not to bid for franchise in Premier Futsal

Panaji: Dattaraj Salgaocar and Shrinivas Dempo were both invited to bid for the Goan franchise of Premier Futsal but the FC Goa co-owners are unlikely to take up the offer.
Premier Futsal is the world’s first multi-national franchise-based futsal league which will be played from July 15 to July 24 in eight different cities. Prospective franchise owners have been sounded out, and even though organizers claimed four buyers have made inquiries about Goa, Dempo and Salgaocar are not among them.
“Not at this stage at least,” a source close to the FC Goa co-owners told TOI on Thursday. That the league does not have sanction from the All India Football Federation (AIFF) also weighed heavily on their minds.
Curiously, another FC Goa co-owner Virat Kohli is the ambassador for the league.
Meanwhile, the organizers of Premier Futsal will hold trials in Goa to select a minimum of 15 players for the fortnight long camp which will be held next month in Chennai. The recently launched nationwide talent hunt dubbed as ‘Premier Futsal Launchpad’ aims to pick the top local futsalling talent to play in the inaugural season of the multi-national futsal league.
The Goa trials will be held from June 3 at Chowgule sports complex in Margao, starting 8am. Players aged between 18 and 24 have been invited for the trials after filling up the registration form on the premier futsal website. Organizers said the talent hunt process will involve two primary criteria - fitness and technical
A total of 40 players – five per city –will go on to represent their home cities in the league.