E-Paper
English-medium schools in Pune refuse to play ball with DSO for Subroto Cup
Vijay Santan,District Sports Office chief, and Rajesh Bagul, taluka sports officer explain why and how lack of co-operations is suffocating and drowning out football at the grassroots for a tournament as storied as the Subroto Cup
Every year, when the Subroto Cup comes to town, complaints from players and coaches are the same. Incessant rain in the city leave the grounds used for the under-14 and under-17 matches almost unplayable due to heavy water logging.
At the District Sports Office, Vijay Santan, DSO chief, and his second-in-command Rajesh Bagul, taluka sports officer are in no denial about the situation.
The answer they tell Pranav Shahaney, lies with schools in the city who have the grounds and facilities to ensure the game is not affected -- rain or not.
Santan and Bagul explain why and how lack of co-operations is suffocating and drowning out football at the grassroots for a tournament as storied as the Subroto Cup.
Every year the same issues arise - lack of adequate playing facilities for the teams. What steps is DSO taking to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future?
Rajesh Bagul: Under the DSO the divisions of Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and all the 13 different talukas are run. The competition taking place at PCMC is a ground that’s owned by them and not by us, so they need to be maintaining it. Our role is to plan the calendar and ensure that the grounds are ready for the teams to play. The reason we’ve delegated the responsibility to the corporations is because there are 700 teams and we’re only four people here looking after football.
Vijay Santan: It gets extremely difficult to conduct these tournaments in the rain, but we have no choice as the Subroto state championships starti on August 8. Because of the rains, grounds are damaged and due to that our games get delayed. Of course, we need to change certain things to ensure that a team from the city goes for the division and state tournament.
Are you satisfied with the the PDFA ground at Dobarwadi, in terms of it being one of the venues?
Santan: The matches that are going on at the Dobarwadi stadium come under the jurisdiction of the PMC. Looking at the condition of the ground, we gave used SSPMS ground, paying Rs. 4000 rent per day. There’s also a compulsion of spending five per cent of taxes received on sports, which I don’t think is being utilised by the PMC.
Bagul: On the SSPMS grounds there are two different grounds which can be played on. This would ensure that the players play on better surfaces and that the matches get done twice as quickly. Another advantage of that surface is that the water dries up after a couple of hours and doesn’t remain wet like the other grounds.
You seem to be pointing a finger at the PMC...
Bagul: PMC has the money, but they’re still not looking into the development of grounds. In fact, we’re offering around Rs. 7 lakh to develop and sett up new facilities for district tournaments. We’re actually encouraging schools to build playing facilities under our playground development scheme. The only thing we ask in return is for them to let us use their ground for a little over a week every year. And this is something English-medium schools are opposing.
So, the finger moves to the English-medium schools.
Santan: When we approach schools and even agree to match their rental charges, they don’t let us conduct tournaments in the school. The reason they give is that the ground is made solely for their students and getting hundreds of children during district tournaments will make it a chaotic situation in the school. The facilities could be damaged without anyone being accountable, is what they tell the DSO when we approach them. They don’t let the ground out to the government, but don’t realise that their students are playing the tournament on the government grounds.
Subroto Cup under-17 schedule
Currently second round is going on
Quarterfinals on 2nd August
Semifinals on 3rd August
Finals on 4th August
