The late Jerome Pascoal D’Mello popularly known as JP in Kuwait, in India and in Asian soccer world was a renowned football referee and a soccer administrator at All India and at Asia level too. In the beginning of nineteen eighties, he came to Kuwait and got employed at Kremenco, a well known company in Kuwait employing thousands of employees at Ahmadi Oil sector. He had passion for soccer not only to organize but also to see its promotion and development.
In 1979 United Goans Football Centre (UG) were responsible to initiate and start our competitive soccer activities at Sour grounds, in Kuwait city. First it was only one League cum Knock-out tournament organized by UG and from the following year came Flying Arrows and others with their Knockout tourneys. Since these tournaments were organized by individual clubs and teams, JP felt the need to bring all the participating teams under one banner for the smooth functioning and control. He first confided this idea to me which I marketed to all thru my writings and gained momentum for this good proposal.
Mr. Lawrence Rato with my assistance and with the help of others who are no more in Kuwait now, convened a meeting in the big Church Hall to devise ways to proceed further but man like Denzil D’Souza and others vomited negative feelings. We said, and I wrote boldly thru my writings that those who are not willing to support this proposal they should withdraw from our midst but we will go ahead.
Then Lawry Pinto got himself involved directly and gave an extra booster for this move. He moved mountains by contacting every club and every team to support this proposal, in the bargain he received insults too from the arrogant people but he never gave up. We all supported him and I remained firmly behind him by writing in support of the formation of apex body.
Rato brought soccer rules books from FIFA directly, I provided my own materials and I joined the front runners in drafting the constitution but later on I withdrew for personal reasons but supported from behind the scene. Finally, in 1985 the apex body known as KUWAIT INDIAN FOOTBALL FEDERATION (KIFF) was formed fulfilling the dream of JP the founder of Indian Football Referees Association (IFRA) in Kuwait. He and Lawry Pinto were hailed as heroes of this movement and in fact they are and not me as many wrongly thought.
It is almost a quarter of a century now that KIFF has been running our soccer activities under its full control. Though KIFF is doing a commendable job yet many times arrogance and Hitlerism overruled reasoning and logic due to which many mishaps have occurred in the functioning of KIFF. This happened because persons not knowing the meaning of soccer got themselves engaged in the KIFF committee. Instead of applying soccer rules, members started applying personal rules to inflict heavy punishments for erring teams and players. Disagreements and difference of opinions erupted and suddenly this year in the beginning of the KIFF season 'splittists' in the KIFF joined together and formed another association similar to KIFF. One is called a parent body by the people while the other is called 'rebel' body with the membership of only 6 clubs or teams. At the time of writing these lines, I got an information that the parent body KIFF is having the support of 12 strong and heavyweight senior teams while the other newly formed body is having just 6 teams under its fold.
It is very sad that the situation has reached to this level necessitating split in Kuwait Indian Football. I think this situation could have been avoided if there was give and take attitude from both the warring sides. By splitting KIFF nothing will happen to KIFF but only the game of soccer will suffer which should not be. For so long KIFF did a fairly good job in promoting soccer among us. Now two organising bodies mean two different interests and two different directions with bad blood running.. It is not necessary. Good that this is not a permanent place for us to stay, if any untoward incident takes place we all will have to run from here. In this case, who will run our parallel associations? I am not blaming anybody for this mishap but those who were responsible for the formation of KIFF and also those who were responsible in running KIFF, they only know the hardship of how to maintain KIFF and importance of the KIFF.
The KIFF has got a history of almost 25 years and this history cannot be erased by forming a parallel body. KIFF is known to be for sports and entertainment in Kuwait and having the largest number of members to be registered in the Middle east. We have seen strong footballers fighting on the field with the ball to score goals and win games over the years, never thinking of the tensed life they spend in Kuwait. Few of the men I know have even died for keeping this Sports and Unity alive in Kuwait. It does not mean that they were freedom fighters for the federation but men who kept a large number of people together under one tree. The federation was going with games organized and cups won by the best teams in Kuwait which became an inspiration for the youngsters. There were also players of different states from India playing together in some clubs. Well what made it so weak that a new federation had to be made?
The news of the new federation was given on the web but no names were shown of the committee members representing the new federation. Either the new federation does not want to respect their elders and carry on the tradition of keeping the spirit alive in one place or they want to separate the sports lovers in two half for their personal differences. Why has such a time come to alienate from the rest of the Indian community in Kuwait.
I do understand that some of the decisions of the KIFF were very harsh and contrary to the spirit of soccer but this could have been easily sorted out instead of bringing about divisions among us. People imparting education and discipline to the boys should have been on the forefront to provide sensible and disciplined counsel to those who are fighting the useless war which creates indiscipline in the society. Football is organized to unite people and not to create splits among people.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait
In 1979 United Goans Football Centre (UG) were responsible to initiate and start our competitive soccer activities at Sour grounds, in Kuwait city. First it was only one League cum Knock-out tournament organized by UG and from the following year came Flying Arrows and others with their Knockout tourneys. Since these tournaments were organized by individual clubs and teams, JP felt the need to bring all the participating teams under one banner for the smooth functioning and control. He first confided this idea to me which I marketed to all thru my writings and gained momentum for this good proposal.
Mr. Lawrence Rato with my assistance and with the help of others who are no more in Kuwait now, convened a meeting in the big Church Hall to devise ways to proceed further but man like Denzil D’Souza and others vomited negative feelings. We said, and I wrote boldly thru my writings that those who are not willing to support this proposal they should withdraw from our midst but we will go ahead.
Then Lawry Pinto got himself involved directly and gave an extra booster for this move. He moved mountains by contacting every club and every team to support this proposal, in the bargain he received insults too from the arrogant people but he never gave up. We all supported him and I remained firmly behind him by writing in support of the formation of apex body.
Rato brought soccer rules books from FIFA directly, I provided my own materials and I joined the front runners in drafting the constitution but later on I withdrew for personal reasons but supported from behind the scene. Finally, in 1985 the apex body known as KUWAIT INDIAN FOOTBALL FEDERATION (KIFF) was formed fulfilling the dream of JP the founder of Indian Football Referees Association (IFRA) in Kuwait. He and Lawry Pinto were hailed as heroes of this movement and in fact they are and not me as many wrongly thought.
It is almost a quarter of a century now that KIFF has been running our soccer activities under its full control. Though KIFF is doing a commendable job yet many times arrogance and Hitlerism overruled reasoning and logic due to which many mishaps have occurred in the functioning of KIFF. This happened because persons not knowing the meaning of soccer got themselves engaged in the KIFF committee. Instead of applying soccer rules, members started applying personal rules to inflict heavy punishments for erring teams and players. Disagreements and difference of opinions erupted and suddenly this year in the beginning of the KIFF season 'splittists' in the KIFF joined together and formed another association similar to KIFF. One is called a parent body by the people while the other is called 'rebel' body with the membership of only 6 clubs or teams. At the time of writing these lines, I got an information that the parent body KIFF is having the support of 12 strong and heavyweight senior teams while the other newly formed body is having just 6 teams under its fold.
It is very sad that the situation has reached to this level necessitating split in Kuwait Indian Football. I think this situation could have been avoided if there was give and take attitude from both the warring sides. By splitting KIFF nothing will happen to KIFF but only the game of soccer will suffer which should not be. For so long KIFF did a fairly good job in promoting soccer among us. Now two organising bodies mean two different interests and two different directions with bad blood running.. It is not necessary. Good that this is not a permanent place for us to stay, if any untoward incident takes place we all will have to run from here. In this case, who will run our parallel associations? I am not blaming anybody for this mishap but those who were responsible for the formation of KIFF and also those who were responsible in running KIFF, they only know the hardship of how to maintain KIFF and importance of the KIFF.
The KIFF has got a history of almost 25 years and this history cannot be erased by forming a parallel body. KIFF is known to be for sports and entertainment in Kuwait and having the largest number of members to be registered in the Middle east. We have seen strong footballers fighting on the field with the ball to score goals and win games over the years, never thinking of the tensed life they spend in Kuwait. Few of the men I know have even died for keeping this Sports and Unity alive in Kuwait. It does not mean that they were freedom fighters for the federation but men who kept a large number of people together under one tree. The federation was going with games organized and cups won by the best teams in Kuwait which became an inspiration for the youngsters. There were also players of different states from India playing together in some clubs. Well what made it so weak that a new federation had to be made?
The news of the new federation was given on the web but no names were shown of the committee members representing the new federation. Either the new federation does not want to respect their elders and carry on the tradition of keeping the spirit alive in one place or they want to separate the sports lovers in two half for their personal differences. Why has such a time come to alienate from the rest of the Indian community in Kuwait.
I do understand that some of the decisions of the KIFF were very harsh and contrary to the spirit of soccer but this could have been easily sorted out instead of bringing about divisions among us. People imparting education and discipline to the boys should have been on the forefront to provide sensible and disciplined counsel to those who are fighting the useless war which creates indiscipline in the society. Football is organized to unite people and not to create splits among people.
A. Veronica Fernandes,
Kuwait
