Mumbai Football is in safe hands

by Siddharth Yadav July 15, 2017

Just a week ago, a new dawn rosed in Mumbai. Aditya Thackeray and team retained their position at the top of Mumbai Football. The head of Yuva Sena’s team won the highest number of votes in the Elections for the Executive Council. All the other 26 candidates from the Thackeray-led panel were also successful, winning by a landslide victory. A total of 37 candidates had contested for the 27 Executive Council seats.

With the immense development in the last couple of years, there wasn’t any big surprise when the final vote counts were declared which led to a memorable victory. Aditya Thackeray and his team not only worked for the grassroots but also gave a new recognition to Mumbai Football.

For the first time in 61 years, the city of dreams hosted an International football match when India hosted Puerto Rico in the newly build Mumbai Football Arena at Andheri Sports Complex. It was nothing but a historic moment for Indian Football. Besides Mumbai Football Arena, Bandra Reclamation Ground is yet another venue where the panel has worked upon. In the upcoming season of MDFA, we are surely witnessing another big achievement.

Earlier this year, MDFA hosted the first awards night ever in Mumbai and also launched their new website – http://www.mdfaofficial.com. Not to forget, for the first time MDFA league matches were played under floodlights.

More importantly, the off-field development reflected on the players and teams. Conducted by WIFA, the Mumbai-based teams emerged as Champions in U-14 Boys and Women, U-18 Boys and Women’s open category. To promote Women’s Football, MDFA also conducted girls grassroots program through schools under BMC on the occasion of Women’s day which saw a total of 200 participants.

With the recent victory in the elections, MDFA has planned to improvise in the sectors where they have been lacking in. Also, Tournaments (Rovers Cup, Zonal Tournament) which has been abandoned earlier will be revamped in the coming years.

Huge expectations are upon the committee and if the last five years work will be emulated in the upcoming years then we are surely seeing Mumbai going towards the right and successful path.

Current Panel: Aaditya Thackeray (President), Dr Vijay Patil (Chairman), Vice Presidents: Sudhakar Rane, Souter Vaz, Suzzane Chowdhury, Anil Parab, Hon. General Secretary: Udayan Banerjee, Assistant Secretaries: Anoop Dubey, Henry Picardo, C.K Shetty and Salim Ansari, Treasurer: Shodhana Shetty, Executive Committee members: Digamber Kandarkar, John Almeida, Jacinto D’Silva, Vilas Rane, Suresh Banjan, Anthony Rodrigues, Nasir Hussain, Conrad Pereira, Darryl D’Souza, Krishna Pawle, Ryan Menezes, Firmin D’Souza, Ajit Sawant, Farhan Butt, Salvador D’Souza and Ganesh Madkar.

MDFA Panel