Nassiri advocates for revival of old tournaments

Jamshedpur: Former footballer Jamshed Nassiri strongly advocated for revival of the tournaments which are not being organised while reducing the duration of the I-League to excel Indian football performance at Asian level.

Nassiri, who was in the steel city to kick off the Jamshedpur Football League at Gopal maidan here yesterday, said I-league was not doing good for Indian football even though 12 to 14 teams remained engaged playing the tournament for around nine month in a year. "If the old tournaments such as Rovers Cup or some other tournaments like the IFA Shield be organized properly, it would provide more opportunities to footballers to sharpen their skill and could play against more teams," Nassiri said. "Even the lone National championship Santosh Trophy was fast losing its sheen due to lack of interest of the concerned authorities as well as the players playing big professional clubs," he observed. Nassiri, who had represented all the three Kolkata-based football club?East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Md Sporting during 1970-80s and currently engaged in Youth Development programme, strongly advocated for tapping young talents in the age group of 7/8 years and needed them to groom properly for similar period to develop them to perform at International arena. Nassiri expressed confidence that India would retain a respectable position in Asia in a decade time, had we take the initiative, he opined.