GFA president Caitano Fernandes sent a letter to the All India Football Federation president Kalyan Chaubey about the ‘twisted and unjustified’ manner in which the AIFF Awards were selected and handed out”.
Significantly, GFA did not receive any recognition at the annual ceremony. According to a report from News9 Sports GFA president, in his letter extended congratulations to all the deserving award winners and Member Associations, but wrote, “I also write with a sense of anguish and a need for clarity regarding the selection process and the rationale behind the award categories, particularly those for Member Associations. Specifically, I would like to understand who within the AIFF, or which specific committee, was responsible for deciding the AIFF award categories for Member Associations for the year 2025.”
Fernandes pointed out how Goa, with approximately 6800 players registered on AIFF’s centralized registration system (CRS) out of a population of 15 lakh was overlooked for the winning members association, whose registrations amount to 0.04% of its population (5 lakh out of a population of 127 million) was overlooked by the AIFF.
Goa also organized over 1400 matches this season where almost 200 registered clubs took part.
“We feel that this is a very skewed method of identifying the winner in this category because the smaller states will always fall behind even though technically football is more popular amongst the populace,” was Fernandes’ observation.
“We are probably the only state that organizes l6 leagues and have a well-structured youth competition for both boys and girls, which was even commended by the (AIFF) League Committee,” commented Caitano while speaking to News9 Sports.
Not only Goa, but a few other officials of a few other state associations also expressed wonder and disappointment while speaking to News9 Sports as they were also ignored in the AIFF award function, held on 2nd May in Bhubaneswar.
