E-Paper
Lack of physicality in Pune footballers is what costs them at national level: Pradeep Pardeshi
Pardeshi has explained the proposed plans for the rest of the year
The Poona district football association (PDFA) and a select bunch of clubs may have been at odds for a number of months, but when it comes to the execution, promotion and all-round management of the sport, their secretary Pradeep Pardeshi has assured that no compromises are been done. Speaking to Pranav Shahaney, Pardeshi explained the proposed plans for the rest of the year.
Are you now seeing a drastic improvement in terms of club-level and grassroots level football?
The level as risen leaps and bounds. When we started PDFA in the city, we roughly had 25-30 teams. Today, we have 152 teams. Even the quality of football has skyrocketed. Today even at the junior level, our district teams are beating the top teams and making it to the semi-finals and finals.
With the vast talent the city has at its disposal, what is lacking in terms of it developing a player fit enough to represent the country?
A number of our kids get picked for the national camps, but are not picked for the national team because of their drawbacks in terms of physicality. Yes, we are working on the physical side of their game as well and we’re hoping that reaps dividend because the talent here is exceptional.
Throughout the year a number of tournaments are played with the PDFA either being directly or indirectly involved. Could you explain the association’s involvement and has anything changed post the allegations made by the clubs?
A number of eleven a side tournaments take place in the city and the organisers come to us to take the required permission. What we do is that we assist them in the various things involved to successfully run the tournament and also give them referees and other facilities to play on. All the leagues are going on smoothly. Nothing is different in terms of our league execution with the tournaments commencing and ending as they usually do. We have a base for the PDFA here for a number of years. We decided to have 32 teams for this year so we had to promote five because we only had 29.
Speaking of referees, after interacting with coaches and players, we have understood that the level of in-game officiating is not up to the mark. Is this an issue the PDFA is looking to tackle?
Our referees have to undertake certain examinations. Only after they’ve passed their qualifications, we let them officiate in matches. The All India football federation (AIFF) conducts a CAT exam for the referees.
Apart from the execution of tournaments and promotion of the game, the PDFA is also responsible for players from the district being sent to state-level tournaments. Could you explain how the selection process works?
There was a five-man committee that was picked to decide which players have to represent the u-14 team that went for the Santosh trophy and there were also trials held where 250 players participated. Usually, we have trials and then we send a team, but this time we got the notice very late and had to make the call based on the players that were in form.