How has your experience been as chief of MSSA? What are the challenges you have faced?
I joined as vice president in 2004 before becoming president in 2006. The challenges we faced earlier were very different from the challenges now.
When I took over, we had a financial crisis. There were only a few lakh rupees left. So we then started getting direct sponsors like Nike and Mumbai Indians. Today we don’t have a financial crunch to run the tournaments.
The next challenge was and is the ground and its lease. It was last renewed in 2013 till 2016 and is pending since then.
Do you have any plans for the development of the MSSA ground which hosts thousands of kids each year?
The MMRDA dug half of our ground for the Metro construction. They said initially it will take around six months but it's been more than two years now and it’s likely to take another year or year and a half.
What is MSSA doing in the interim?
I really appreciate that gymkhanas and private clubs have come forward to help in terms of helping with venues. They want to promote and give us venues for free. So for most sports it’s not a problem. Our only problem is when it comes to hockey. The Maharashtra Hockey Associations charges are too much for us. It gets expensive to let our teams train there. That’s why I’m looking to put a multi-sport astro turf at our ground.
Can that be done without getting the lease?
Whether the lease comes or not, they can’t take the ground from us because we have been here for so many years. The only reason the lease is stuck is because of —and I don’t want to say – red tapism. That being said, we still can’t do any work on the ground until we get back the entire ground from MMRDA.
When you were elected president, your focus was on development of grassroots sports in Mumbai. Are you satisfied with what you have done?
I’m surely not satisfied. The facility is not there for the children to fully develop. That being said, enthusiasm should also come from the children. Participation is there but I don’t think that the enthusiasm is fully there. To develop grassroots we need to have academies for various sports. We are working on that and hopefully it will happen in the coming years.
Can you elaborate on that?
You see, we took the MSSA academy hockey team to play in the Khelo India Games and other national competitions. I don’t think we performed well and that’s because we should be training the players regularly. The players can only compete if they have trained together. But we don’t have the facilities to do that, especially when it comes to hockey. That’s why I want to reiterate that multi-sport astro turf is a must.
That’s bound to raise the costs…
Getting sponsors for it will not be an issue because we have quite a few well wishers. Look, it’s my dream that when children enter the ground, they should feel like it is their world. They should want to just roll on the ground, to stay here. That’s the dream…
Will there be a regular sports season next academic year considering the government has given the green signal to schools right from the primary level?
According to me, yes, it should go on. Even during the pandemic, we were active online. We had webinars for all the sports. We even had online competitions for chess. We didn’t stay static.
There is private coaching going on at MSSA’s tennis and basketball courts which are located inside the premises. Is that allowed?
We have appointed coaches to conduct classes. We’ve done it so we can make some revenue since MSSA tournaments were not happening anyway.
There have been some allegations that the MSSA elections planned for this year will not be held…
The elections will happen in July as planned.
You hockey secretary Lawrence Bing recently resigned saying he was not happy with the functioning of MSSA and he’s said he will contest for the president’s post. What do you have to say about it?
This is an honorary post. We don’t get paid. In his resignation letter, he mentioned some personal reason why he couldn’t continue and we accepted that.
About him contesting for elections, he’s free to do so. Nobody can stop him.
