FIFA, AFC OFFICIALS TO VISIT KOLKATA
KOLKATA: World football’s governing body FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) officials will visit the city on September 13 and 14 to meet the state association and East Bengal and Mohun Bagan officials to discuss the way forward as to how there can be one league in the country from 2018.
economy,” the 69-year-old said.
“I am not sure whether in my life time, I will ever get to see India qualify for the World Cup. So it’s a great opportunity for all of us to support and celebrate the occasion.”
He pointed out that the franchise tournament Indian Super League has been successful in bringing crowd back to watching football.
“In the 1960s and 70s, there would be a huge interest in football with packed stadiums but crowd suddenly vanished in the 90s,” the 1970 Asian Games bronze medallist and a Mohun Bagan star said.
“But thanks to ISL, football is back in the spotlight. For
any sport to survive you need crowd. Mohun Bagan and East Bengal are there only because of their fan base.” Thapa, who chaired an AIFF technical committee meeting in Bengaluru last month, said his primary focus is to make India Asian giants, looking beyond dominance among South Asian countries.
“It’s about playing well and making an impact (in U-17 World Cup) and more importantly to hold on to the team. They will be our future. All our effort should be to improve their standard and take them to the next level,” he said, outlining the technical committee’s move to make U-17 side play in the upcoming I-LEAGUE.”AGENCIES CHENNAI: Defending champion Jagan Kumar of TVS Racing won a double in the Super Sport Indian class in the fourth round of MRF MMSC FMSCI Indian National Motorcycle Racing Championship at Sriperumbudur on Sunday.
Having won the first race in the premier Super Sport Indian (up to 165cc) category on Saturday, Kumar maintained his form with another flawless ride to win the second race and narrowed the gap with leader Rajiv Sethu (Honda Ten10 Racing) to just one point.
The 50 points that he garnered this weekend, saw him jump two spots from fourth to second on the leaderboard, moving past team-mate Harry Sylvester (99) and Honda Ten10 Racing s Mathana Kumar (109). Finishing second behind Jagan were team-mates KY Ahamed and Kannan Subramaniam as the trio underlined TVS Racing s dominance as the championship moves into the final round slated for September 29-October 1 at the same venue.
In the Pro-stock (Up to 165cc) category, Hubballi’s Anish Shetty scored his maiden win of the season, ahead of championship leader and team-mate Aravind Balakrishnan and Moto-rev s Aravind Ganesh. The result saw Balakrishnan move to 126 points while Ganesh has 105.