By Irineu Gonsalves.

COMPETITIONS HAVE BEEN the essence of any game to bring the best out of an individual or a team.  Football competitions are more organized from 1950s. Some competitions have faded and disappeared from the scene altogether.  But the competitions built on sound foundation survived and flourished as a worldwide competitive structure developed.  Inarguably, Europe stands out as far as football development is concerned.  With the success of the European Cup for club sides and the launch of the European Championship for international sides, each developing footballing region copied the competition structure of Europe.

With the sheer weight of fixture list, every country is forced to impose a fixture schedule so that the harmony is maintained between the clubs and the National Associations on how and when players may be made available for the multiplicity of tournaments demanding their presence at both club and national level.  If this fixture schedule was not adhered to top players would not have been available for their countries.  To qualify for the World Cup, countries play more than a dozen matches.  Then there is qualification for the European Cup and there are other competitions.

Since the commercial and professional pressures have increased there has been bad blood between the clubs and the National Associations.  But all this has been sorted out to avoid antagonism between clubs and National Associations on how and when players be made available for the multiplicity of tournaments demanding their presence at both club and national level.

Compared to pressure in Europe our country has lesser commitments and yet there is so much antagonism between clubs and state Associations.  There is so much of hullabaloo about the number of games a player should play in India that even  the National Football coach Stephen Constantine said, “Players in India shouldn't be playing more than 40 matches a year.”  In Europe, when the various club competitions are added top players can face around 70 games per year with very little let-up.

Nobody disagrees that the players' wages are paid by the clubs.  But this is not something new.  What is new is the attitude of the players as well as the team officials, apropos, commitments to the state and country is concerned.  The team goal is to get more of their team members playing to their potential while doing duty to the club.  But these officials do not deem it fit that players should display the same fervour while doing duty to one's state/country.  This is bound to get a long mention as the savvy Goan football enthusiasts have read between the lines.  They have got the message that the team officials have threatened their players of dire consequences if they defy the management.

By ripping the soul out of the Goan players, these unscrupulous team officials showed that Goa who had aspired to be number one in Indian football will have much catching up to do.  Some players got the short end of the stick from their club officials and a couple of them even got sacked because they refused to feign injuries when asked to do so.  All this needs investigation.  The football loving Goans are waiting to hang effigies of the persons responsible at the entrance of the Fatorda Stadium during the NFL matches.

It's very strange that players like Salgaocar's Jyothi Kumar and others are fit to play for their clubs but not for the State.  Jyothi Kumar left for his hometown before the probable list was announced and that's the explanation.  The Association accepted.  Sounds amusing to the ears.  Football followers now know that there is much more to this than meets the eye.  Enquiry commissions are required to investigate the betrayal to the State.  This is a very serious issue compared to what the other commissions are appointed nor.

CHESS OLYMPIAD
Just like Anju Bobby George's best ever leap ended short of earning India its first athletics medal at the Athens Olympics, India's best ever performance at the biennial Chess Olympiad, was not good enough.

India finished sixth.  Nevertheless, it's a great honour to take a sixth-place finish in the field of 128 nations.  This is India's highest ever placing in the mega event.  For the uninitiated, in the 2002 Olympiad, India had finished a distant 29, a fall of 21 places from where it ended up in 2000.

Returning to the team after 12 years, Vishwanathan Anand led the country. Though the United States and Armenia finished ahead of India, they were beaten by India and lost only by the slenderest of margins to Cuba, Israel, Ukraine and Russia. A creditable performance indeed.

The interesting thing at the Olympiad is that the minimum age was dropping each year at the event.  There were kids who were 12 years old but on the other hand, the grand old man of chess Viktor Korchnoi continues to play full steam.  This Olympiad also helped Anand amass  a couple of rating points which will come good in his pursuit to become the third player and first non-Russian in contemporary chess to touch the magic figure of 2800.  Only Gary Kasparov and Vladamir Kramnik have achieved the feat.

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