AIFF has scant regard for I-League clubs, says Shivanand Salgaocar

Panaji: Shivanand Salgaocar has actively presided over Salgaocar FC for the last 40 years and for most part the club was at the top of Indian football’s pyramid. The club chairman explains why he took the painful decision to pull out of the I-League in this exclusive interview. Excerpts…
Surely, this was not an easy decision and was not taken overnight.
It was painful. Through thick and thin, we have been in the I-League.For the past three to four years when mining was shut and there was no revenue, we still persisted. Football is dear to all of us. Whilst we were all apprehensive about the future, we really did not expect the kind of proposal that was tabled on May 17 (in Delhi) which relegated I-League to the second tier. Since there is no promotion to the top-tier, you would get stuck in League One. The AIFF said the new structure would come into existence from 2017-18, so why should I waste my time, money and energy this year?
Were you happy with the existing structure of a shortened I-League and the best dates being allotted to the ISL?
I was not happy but would have lived with it. I would have liked a longer I-League season with better scheduling of matches because there is so much of fatigue that builds particularly when a team travels out of station. Each trip is arduous and before the players recover (after a match), they have to take an early-morning flight which is quite strenuous and unfair on them.
That’s largely because there are two leagues and both cannot survive.
I am not the author of the two leagues. It is the AIFF who have taken a call and said the I-League is not important.
Do you believe the AIFF is banking too heavily on the ISL?
The AIFF has no control over Indian football. They have sold all their marketing rights and are (now) completely dependent on the ISL. Whether Salgaocar Football Club is there or not, Indian football should not suffer. If the AIFF thinks ISL is the right model, so be it. For the love of the game, I sincerely hope they succeed and that their new roadmap results in India's Fifa ranking improving drastically, at least to the AIFF's targeted 120. Otherwise it will be a real shame.
If the AIFF had agreed to accommodate all existing I-League teams in the ISL and make it the top tier, would you compete?
Of course. Surely. However, a ‘pay to play’ model is something that is not acceptable. We should be there on merit. In the first year of the NFL, Mohun Bagan did not qualify but nobody complained because there was a fair qualification process. It's nobody's birth right to be in the top tier league. We have got relegated twice but fought our way back. The domestic players that play in the ISL are the same in the I-League, so I don’t see any reason why I-League teams cannot compete in the ISL.
Why didn’t you wait for the AIFF to make a formal announcement about the new roadmap and announce the decision to pull out even before the season had kicked off?
We waited as long as we could, for the AIFF to respond to our May 28 email and subsequent phone calls. This is already very late. If the AIFF were serious about the business of football, they would have had the meeting early this year and not last month. We cannot delay our decision beyond this month. Since we start pre-season in the first week of July, we have to sign players now, and if we are not signing them, we have to let them go.
The AIFF said the proposal was not final.
I cannot wait indefinitely. In any relationship, you cannot keep the other person hanging. They could have responded saying we will get back but there was not even an acknowledgment. The present behaviour combined with past history shows that the AIFF has scant regard for I-League clubs.
Were you piqued that the AIFF kept the clubs guessing for too long and did not respond to any of your mails?
I was not surprised that they did not reply. They never reply. For the last three years they always said ‘let’s meet and come out with solutions’ but the exchange never happened. When the meeting was called last month in Delhi, there were no discussions. Instead a proposal was tabled, and to ask clubs to react to such a proposal on a spur of the moment is over ambitious.
What happens to players who are still contracted with the club?
We will give them an option to choose whichever I-League team they want to join and the rest will continue with us in the Goa Pro League.
Could the clubs pulling out mean the beginning of the end for Goan football?
I don’t believe that football is dependent on two or three clubs. Earlier too several Goan clubs have shut shop like Shantilal, Academica and Independente, then Fransa-Pax.
But this will be for the first time that Goa will not have any representation in the combined history of the league.
Initially, there will be some repercussions. But I am sure football will find a way and come out with solutions. There is a lot of talent in Goa which should not go waste.