Football Fans Manipur

IMPHAL, Jan 31: Manipur launched its campaign in the AIFF Under-14 Boys Football Festival at Kalyani (West bengal) with a 5-1 victory over Uttarakhand.

All the goals in the thumping victory today were scored in the first half with L Bidyashor’s opener coming only 45 seconds into the match.

While M Siraj (2nd) and Ng Pitler (10th) extended the lead to 3-0 Bidyashor’s second in the match in the 17th and a 29th minute strike by O Rahul rounded off the easy victory.

Puducherry and Goa are also in the same group of Manipur, who will play both teams tomorrow.

Imphal, January31: 28 Assam Rifles under the aegis of HQ 9 Sect Assam Rifles and IGAR(S) is organising “Play Together for Manipur Football Tournament” from 01 to 05 Feb 12 at Lilong post. Manipur has always been on the fore from of sports in the country. Assam Rifles has always made an endeavour to encourage young and budding talent from the State. In pursuance of this noble cause, 28 Assam Rifles has organised this ‘Play together for Manipur Football Tournament’ with an aim to provide the young players a platform to show case their skill.


The matches will be conducted over a period of five days at the Lilong COB of 28 Assam Rifles. Eight teams from local clubs including a team of 28 Assam Rifles will participate. The tournament is being organised to promote football in Manipur, Imphal and hunt for budding young talent. In addition to cash prizes for the winners & runners up, there are many attractive prizes for the best player, best goal keeper and some sports items for the winning team also.


Assam Rifles invites the enthusiastic football lovers of Manipur to come in large numbers and encourage the budding players.

Year                       : 1979 - 2012
Place of Birth          : Imphal, Manipur
Position                  : Midfielder
Team Played for   : India, Mohun Bagan,
                               East Bengal, JCT, Sikkim United and Shillong Lajong FC.                                                                           

Career Highlight

Renedy Singh, India's finest midfielder  has had a fruitful journey both at club and International level.
It all started for the Manipuri lad in the year 1990, when he was selected for Tata Football Academy and after spending six important years at the country most recognized football academy, the talented midfielder started off his professional football career signing for Kolkata giants, East Bengal, where he spent three years (1997-2000) and went on to become the most desirable midfielder of the country.

After three impressive years with Red and Golds, his next destination was East Bengal's traditional rivals Mohun Bagan, where he took his game to the next level spending another five important years (2001-06) before joining Everyday Club (now , Chirag United) for four months. Like everyone, he too had tough time and things were back on track for Renedy, when he signed a three year contract with North India pride, JCT Phagwara in the year 2006.

The polite midfielder had been donning East Bengal color since 2009 to 2011. He recently signed with Lajong FC ,Shillong, lone I League team of  North East region.

As far as his International commitment is concerned, Renedy Singh has been a regular figure in the Indian National team since 1997.

Renedy has been a part of the victorious LG Cup team (2002) Nehru Cup (2007 & 2009) as well AFC Challenge Cup 2008.

Brief Description

Born on June 1979 at Imphal (Manipur),  Renedy Singh always had a dream of making it big in the football and the north eastern bloke didn't disappoint himself as he currently find himself in the elite list of the midfielders.

His curling free-kicks and swift passes are enough to tear apart the opponent defence. Renedy Singh has represented India in more than 60 matches and has scored 12 goals.

The sober midfielder love to spend time with his friends and looks up to David Beckham as his icon.
Currently, India's vice-captain, Renedy loves to eat home cooked and Japanese food. The Manipuri midfielder is one of the most vital players in the Bob Houghton's army, who will be participating in the continent biggest showcase, AFC Asian Cup to be held at Qatar in January, 2011. ( Source AIFF)

 by Sukhdeep Grewal 
Despite the years of turmoil, Manipur has consistently churned out quality footballers. But the almost daily dose of bomb blasts, killings and protests seem to have taken a toll on the sport and its disciples.

A case in point is that of Rajani English School, the under-17 team, who crashed out of the Subroto Cup quarterfinals on Wednesday.

It’s been a little over three months since the Imphal school shut down following a strike call.

“A few locals got killed in an encounter and that angered a group resulting in the strike. I hate going back to the same situation,” said goalkeeper Nongthag Yumnan.

The bunch wore a weary look and looked short on motivation. “We are not fit and not allowed to practice. Sometimes, we practice quietly in a locked stadium so that nobody gets to know,” said Bidyasar, a central defender.

Asked if they expected the situation to get better, the boys said a ‘no’ in unison. “The guy behind the strike threatened us with dire consequences if we came to Delhi for the tournament. We were very scared, but all of us wanted to play here,” said Raj Chauhan, who plays centre-half.

“Hardships have become a part of our lives. We were to catch a train in Dimapur on October 3, but given the situation in Imphal, we reached Dimapur on September 31 and stayed put for the next two days.

The situation is nipping budding careers,” said coach TS Hemantha Singh. Gourmangi Singh, India centre back, sympathized with his statemates. “Football is dying a silent death and nobody can do anything,” he lamented.

In the context of football, ‘Singh a song of success’ could be Manipur’s tagline. From Gopeshwar in the 1960s to Gunabir, Khambiton and Rennedy in the 1990s to the more recent Bungo, Naoba Singh and Gourmangi, the number of Singhs who have represented India from this state is evergrowing.


Money problems

(Source : www.sanabung.com)


India’s two big football clubs now have women with executive powers. But on ground is a different reality. Few women footballers feel empowered by the game; the rest still toil in complete anonymity


At a recent football event, a senior player advised us against giving further publicity to Dolly Adhikary. “She’s been in the news,” was the reason given. Here, nevertheless, is Adhikary’s story. Last year, on 13 June, the 22-year-old footballer who represents Bengal was bitten by a poisonous snake outside her home in a district neighbouring Kolkata. The modest means of her mother, who works as domestic help, and bedridden father forced well-wishers to shift Adhikary to a government hospital in Kolkata and the state’s sports minister to chip in with funds. The local television channels followed; among the rare occasions in recent memory when a woman footballer made “news”.

Having recovered, Adhikary feels “disillusioned” by the game—all these years of playing football, and it hasn’t given her enough money to buy a pair of shoes. She got into the game out of love, transitioning from being a ball girl to a promising state-level player. These days, however, Adhikary’s hunger for a salaried job exceeds her desire for scoring goals.

The same year, Mohun Bagan and East Bengal—India’s premier football clubs, with narratives dating back 122 years and 91 years, respectively—elected a woman each to their highest decision-making executive committees for the first time. When East Bengal elected Molly Ganguly in February and Mohun Bagan, Sohini Mitra in November, the events went largely unnoticed.

Yet both Ganguly and Mitra have overcome century-old club norms that are horribly tilted against women. While the overtly “male chauvinist” character of Indian football is something both had to contend with, in the case of Mohun Bagan there was a “constitutional” ban on inducting women as members till 1995, according to the club’s general secretary, Anjan Mitra.

Some followers of club football in Kolkata have called their induction gimmicky, notional and nepotistic (both Mitra and Ganguly are known to have close relatives in influential club positions). But Arunava Chaudhuri, a blogger, keen observer of women’s football and founder of IndianFootball.com—a website dedicated to building an online database on Indian football—considers it “a significant” signpost for Indian women’s football. “Right now it’s a positive step, but only just. It remains to be seen how it is utilized,” says Chaudhuri.
“For women’s football to come up, administrators of the All India Football Federation (Aiff) should perform a more proactive role,” says Sohini Mitra. “Aiff must make it mandatory for national I-League playing clubs to have a women’s team and also organize more than one national-level tournament. My primary focus at Bagan will be on youth development and on getting women interested. A mother who is keen on football can only mean a newer generation of fans and players.”

Bare facts
On the ground, the reality is not negotiated easily.
Over the decades, there has been a general fall in the standards of Indian football, and the women’s game has been neglected. Aiff’s annual budget for women’s football, for instance, is about Rs. 6 crore, less than half of theRs. 14 crore allotted to the men. Initially, it would appear, Aiff wanted to start a club-level women’s tournament akin to the Federation Cup for men, but found that only two-three states had club-based women’s football. Even today, Bengal, Manipur and Orissa account for more than half of the 1,000 active women footballers in India.

So the 20-25 state women’s teams that have been participating in the national championship every year since the early 1990s, when the tournament began, can provide a misleading picture. Just eight-nine states are considered to be regular and serious about football. Though Tamil Nadu, Goa, Maharashtra and Kerala have begun to show better results in recent years, many teams are still put together hastily, some even including members who don’t actually play football. Across states, women still have to battle the odds to play the game, and earn a living.

Bengal—which has 13 regular women’s football clubs, and over 300 players registered with The Indian Football Association (IFA)—too has suffered setbacks. Both Mohun Bagan and East Bengal had fielded women’s club teams at the 2001 Calcutta Women’s Football League, but disbanded the sides a few seasons later, citing lack of funds, unavailability of practice fields and women’s dressing rooms as reasons. It created a void for players that India’s first regular women’s football league, started in 1993, has been unable to plug, says an official of the IFA, the league organizer and the game’s state-level governing body.

Anjan Mitra says the club plans to reintroduce the women’s team in the near future—a responsibility Mohun Bagan has, he says, as a national club. Gopal Ghosh, general manager (operations), East Bengal, believes that creating a women’s team “on an impulse” will be unsustainable. “We can attempt to make East Bengal at par with Barcelona FC,” he says caustically, “but it will be self-defeatist. We first need to create the infrastructure backbone.”

Promising stats
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) president Sepp Blatter had earlier commented that “the future of football is feminine”—but improving the lot of Indian women’s football will not be a goal that is easily achieved.

Indian women’s football continues to be mired in ironies that have at opposite ends the promise of global elevation and the plight of players like Adhikary and Shanti Mullick. The only Arjuna Award-winning Indian woman footballer, Mullick cherishes the day she got a job with Eastern Railways more than the day she received the award from the President in 1983. “Most girls get involved with football out of natural liking. Later, they realize that a job is essential to keep the home fires burning,” she says.

Yet the Indian women’s team is ranked a respectable 53 in Fifa’s global rankings, and 11 in Asia. In comparison, the men’s team is ranked 158 globally and 29 in Asia—of course, the men’s team is in a bigger and more competitive pool.

“The rankings show how close the Indian women’s team is to securing an Olympic or World Cup berth, which are both distant dreams for the men. If the Aiff pays more attention to the women’s game, much can be achieved,” argues Subhransu Roy, who is currently researching a doctoral thesis titled “Sociocultural History of Women’s Soccer in India” at Kolkata’s Rabindra Bharati University.

It has been a hard-fought comeback for the national side, delisted by Fifa in 2009 for not having played a match for more than 18 months. “After the break, when I took charge, it was hard work to motivate the girls,” says Mohammad Shahid Jabbar, current coach of the Indian women’s team. “We have recently won a series against Bahrain, but the gap between the top-ranked Asian teams and India is enormous. A good grass-roots level programme is missing, and we need long-term planning.”

“From being Asia’s No. 2 side, today we find ourselves out in the cold,” says Goa-based former India player Yolanda D’Souza, whose hat-trick of goals against a visiting Swedish side in 1976 remains the only such feat by an Indian. The player-turned-painter, though, rates a goal scored off a reverse volley (the spectacular bicycle kick) during a Far East tour by the national team among her career highpoints: a colour-and-canvas artist betraying a preference for athletic artistry.

It is interesting to go through D’Souza’s career graph, highlighted as it is by standout performances from the 1970s and 1980s against international sides, unlike the minor state-level achievements many current players showcase. She explains: “The WFFI (Women’s Football Federation of India) organized more tournaments and international friendlies, which improved the game and provided exposure.” This happened before, as D’Souza adds cryptically, “the men took over”. Meaning, the control went out of the hands of the women-run WFFI, which came up in 1979 after a sustained initiative by Lucknow-based sports enthusiast, the late S.R. Zaidi. In the early 1990s, the WFFI handed over the reins of Indian women’s football to Aiff.

The risk: The worthy achievements of Indian women’s football may go into the deep freeze of nostalgia rather than act as platforms for take-off.

Where we were
The Indian women’s team was twice runner-up at the Asian Women’s Championship (now called AFC Women’s Asian Cup) in 1979 and 1983 and came third in 1981. In 1982, before Fifa took over the reins of global women’s football and it was an under-publicized, less glamorized affair, India even participated in the World Women’s Invitational Tournament in the 1980s held in Taiwan, where the team drew against Holland and Haiti but lost to Germany before ending up in the 12th position. The invitational tournament was then seen as the equivalent of a World Cup, and had all the major teams participating.
Look at it this way: Back in 1982, the Indian women’s football team was the 12th best in the world.
“To put things into perspective, 15 years ago India lost by a slender 0-1 margin to Japan. At the 2011 Fifa Women’s World Cup, it was Japan who became world champions after defeating the US,” says Chaudhuri. “To me, Indian women’s football is a case of where we were, where we could have been and where we are not.”
Kuntala Ghosh Dastidar was there in the middle, and sometimes at the helm, of the Indian team, when many of the on-field triumphs were being scored in the 1970s-80s. She is a key person in Indian football’s feminine feats—the era Chaudhuri glorifies as the heights.
She is also a bridge to where much of Indian women’s football emerges from: the conservative, rigidly guarded, semi-urban, semi-rural societies steeped in traditional mindsets that discouraged women from playing a physical sport usually dominated by men. Only the rare courageous woman could escape the long-held value system, where superstitions festered and dowry deaths and witch-hunts were not uncommon.
Ghosh Dastidar remembers two instances vividly. In 1975, Ghosh Dastidar, then just a teenager, was travelling in the team bus for an exhibition match to Bolpur in Bengal’s Birbhum district—and not far from the free-thinking precincts of Tagore’s Santiniketan—when a mob of young men followed the bus on a particular stretch. The men noisily demanded that the girl footballers display their legs, bare beyond the football shorts.
She shudders as she recounts a second instance: In 1978, while playing a village match, a section of the crowd felt cheated at the sight of teenage women players with cropped hair and underdeveloped bodies. The mob had angrily surrounded the team’s temporary, thatched hut shelter, demanding proof of the players’ gender—with petrol and matchbox in hand. “We managed to escape around dawn,” she says.
Over three decades later, women’s team-versus-women’s team “exhibition matches” are held all over Bengal with much greater regularity than a travelling circus or a nautch show. Hundreds of people pay Rs. 40-70 a ticket, but individual players earn no more than Rs. 400 a game. Players depend on the game for their living, and the highest earning among them is lucky to get an annual contract for Rs. 10,000 from their Calcutta Women’s Football League-playing club.
For reasons ranging from lust to awe, both men and women spectators continue to watch the girls play football in their shorts.
Short-changed
If there is any change, contends Dulali Ghosh, a widely respected national league-playing footballer now considering physiotherapy to bolster her income, it is in the fact that some of the daughters of the spectators might now be playing football in the village fields. It’s the result of initiatives of former players and organizations like the Bengal Women Footballers Welfare Association, which continues to put faith in football as an empowering feminist game changer at the grass roots.
Nevertheless, gaining social acceptance is an off-field struggle that most aspiring women footballers have had to essay in Bengal, where in earlier centuries personalities like Rammohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar were the guiding lights for women’s education, empowerment and emancipation, and where men’s football gained popularity in the 1880s.
In Goalless: The Story of a Unique Footballing Nation (2006), sports scholars Boria Majumdar and Kausik Bandhyopadhyay chronicle the birth of women’s football in India. The book recounts the travails faced by Purna Ghosh, an early woman footballer and member of Kolkata’s National Youth Association, which was founded by the liberal reformist Brajaranjan Ray in the 1930s. When Purna Ghosh discarded the sari in favour of a costume that allowed easier movement on the field, she was roundly criticized, even though the Bengali newspaper Anandabazar Patrika showed its support by publishing photographs of her.
In the 1930s, other sari-wearing women footballers in Kolkata were reported to have been injured while playing.
Many years after she quit as a player, 50-year-old Ghosh Dastidar continues to sport a closely cropped hairstyle. She has maintained one since the day Mullick and her entire team walked into a saloon and demanded a “footballer’s cut”, even though she risked a pasting from her father, the patriarch of a conservative home. “I would scale walls and escape from home to play. One day, on seeing my father in a match, I became nervous and accidentally kicked and injured a player,” Ghosh Dastidar laughs.
This was in the mid-1970s, when young athletes responded to an advertisement for forming a women’s team by Arati Banerjee, the football-enthusiast wife of the legendary Indian player P.K. Banerjee. Over a hundred teenaged girls applied; and along with these came warnings from within the male football fraternity: An aggressive sport like football could create hormonal imbalances in women, affect child-bearing capabilities, interfere with menstrual cycles, and so on, remembers Mullick, one of the first applicants.
We met at the Calcutta Referees’ Association tent at Kolkata’s Maidan just days after Mullick returned as the triumphant Bengal side’s coach—the team had participated in an interstate tournament organized by Nalco in Orissa in late December. Bengal’s dominance in women’s football has been emphatically undermined by the Manipur team, which has won 16 of the 19 editions of the India Women’s Football Championship, with Bengal emerging champion twice and Orissa, a rising force, once.
Mullick’s expected exuberance is tempered by a nagging worry: Her teenaged daughter hasn’t been well. Having been associated with the game for over 35 years, it is not her daughter’s recently discovered interest in football that the mother wants to highlight. It is her daughter that the footballer wants to show off; for Mullick, her successful motherhood breaks yet another myth regarding the vision of physiological misfortune previously held out against women playing football.
Free in Manipur
Though there are economic and unemployment problems, no such sociocultural bias or baggage afflicts the women’s game in Manipur. It was introduced as a sporting discipline in 1976, and Manipuri women’s continuous dominance, contends Ranjit Roy, secretary of the All Manipur Football Association, is because of the girls’ and their parents’ enthusiastic approach, “over and above the social support”.
In a state where women have spearheaded efforts ranging from organizing cooperative and individualistic economic models to social and protest activism, it is understandable when Roy says there is no difference between the sexes when it comes to participation, competition, support and organization in football. In a rare interview given to the popular website Kolkatafootball.com, Manipur’s Oinam Bembem Devi, winner of Aiff’s Woman Footballer of the Year for five years and the backbone of the national team, mentions a supportive mother behind her impressive career.
“We have a regular state league, state-level knockout and inter-district tournaments. In our cultural life, football is an important component,” she says.
It is the kind of social safety net that has benefited Manipuri players like 22-year-old L. Naobi Chanu, who represented her state as a striker but now studies and plays for the Delhi University (DU) team. “As a youngster, I only needed to step out of my home and there would be boys and girls playing football together in the courtyard,” says Chanu.
The DU women’s football team comprises students from colleges like Jesus and Mary, Janki Devi Memorial college, Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Kamala Nehru and Kalindi College. It is led by Uttarakhand native Nancy Gupta, who was inspired to take up football after watching British-Indian director Gurinder Chadha’s 2002 film, Bend It Like Beckham.
It’s not the only time the film is mentioned as an inspiration for a newer generation of girls to take to the field. The feel-good story of a London-based Sikh girl overcoming cultural odds to play football scores much higher in the football pop chart than the bittersweet view in Jafar Panahi’s Offside,of Iranian women fans caught outside a stadium during a scorching men’s game, or the fact that Bollywood actor Esha Deol was once considered to possess footballing potential.
An even spread
When Iffat Ara Parveen and Mahima Cholera, students of Kolkata’s Modern High School for Girls, took to football, they were guided by a single motivation. “If boys can play football, why can’t we?” they chirped on the sidelines of the prize distribution ceremony of an inter-school girls football tournament organized by the Bengal Women Footballers Welfare Association in December. Modern High, with others like La Martiniere, Mahadevi Birla, Calcutta International and South Point, forms the fulcrum of football’s increasing spread among elite girls’ schools. If football is gaining popularity among the English Premier League (EPL)-watching young urban crowd, so too is support coming from the most underprivileged quarters: India’s tribal population.
“From Orissa, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, many good tribal woman footballers are coming up. They have endurance, stamina and merely need to be moulded,” says Aiff’s director (national teams) Subhankar Mukherjee. More international matches, including an international tournament later this year, training camps, a proposed academy and exposure tours are some of Aiff’s plans for women’s football. “We are also stressing on junior teams. The focus is on building a team for the future.”
The example of Orissa— where an individual, Nandkishore Patnaik, has been able to build a football culture from scratch—is often cited as Indian women football’s most recent positive story. It is also a glowing citation to long-term vision; 18 years since the football coach formed the first girls’ team after “contributing from the salary” (primarily his own), the state team won the national championship in 2011. “Initially, I got laughed at. Now, women’s football is played in all districts and there are 300 registered players,” says Patnaik.
“In every sport, you can make a career. It depends on determination and discipline,” says Indrani Ghosh Sarkar, now in her 40s, negotiating the north Kolkata traffic as we talk. The determination and discipline required to drive through the narrow congested by-lanes has also guided her through a 25-year-plus football career. She currently teaches football, among other games, at the Calcutta International School. On her way home, she trains young boys, many from underprivileged backgrounds, as part of the Kolkata Goalz project supported by the EPL through the British Council—Mohun Bagan is one of the six clubs associated with the programme in India.
Sarkar has never been outside the football curve. She is suave, articulate, convent-educated, mother, wife, and drives her own car too—just some of the coordinates that go into forming the image of a conventionally successful careerist.
But Sarkar is just half the story of Indian women’s football. The other half belongs to a lady footballer who did not want to be named. Contacted on the phone, she refused to furnish details of an “exhibition match” in a Bengal village where she was to play without the knowledge of the club she is contracted to for the Calcutta League. Keeping the club out of the loop often means earning an additional Rs. 100. If the clubs get to know, it could lead to a show-cause notice or suspension.
Having spent weeks researching the article, I was eager for some on-field action. There was nothing happening, underlining a popular claim that Indian women’s football is more talk than play. I requested her for the match information, she baulked. I pleaded, she stonewalled. Eventually she threw reason. I withdrew.
“For you, it’s only an article. For me, it’s a livelihood.”

IMPHAL, Jan 25: The Republic Day Football Tournament organised by 33 Assam Rifles of Loktak Brigade under the Red Shield Division concluded today at Moirang Multipurpose Higher Secondary School ground with Phubala Football Club wresting the title with a solitary goal defeat of Modern ideal Youth Club, Thanga.

The closing ceremony of the tournament marked the coming together of the people of Bishnupur, Nonei and Gothal on one platform involving sports and culture in which Manipur has became a model for other states, expressed a PIB (DW) release.

While the ‘Peace and Harmony Meet’ showcas-ed the varied cultures, the final football match display-ed the sporting talent.

The event also witness-ed many enthusiastic men, women and children cele-brating the genius of sports and rich culture.

The ceremony began with the address by Comdt 33 Assam Rifles Col Naresh Bhardwaj who welcomed the chief guest Commander Loktak Brigade Brig Laove Verma, and other distin-guished guests along with the people who had come in so many numbers and traveled long distances.

Addressing the gathe-ring, Brig Laove Verma spe- cially appreciated the rich sports and cultural heritage of Manipur and conveyed resolve of the security for-ces in fostering these aspe- cts of Manipur continuou-sly.

He gave away the prizes to both the teams, as well as incentives to all participa-ting teams of the tourna- ment, including the offi-cials. To add to the gran- deur, a Band display by 6/8 GR comprising of brass and wood wind instruments such as Trombones, Clari-net, Saxophone and Car- nets, was organized reflec-ting the regalia and the splendor of the Army.

IMPHAL, Jan 25: NYThC, Okram Chuthek have been crowned champions of the 8th Soraisham Ronika Memorial Junior Girls Football Tournament after a 4-3 win over ESU, Wangkhei in penalty shoot-out at Khuman Lampak Main Stadium.

After normal period ended with one goal apiece, tie-breaker was applied in which S Tejibala, N Binodini and Sh Jyotimala netted from the spot out of five attempts of NYThC while only W Komlabati and Th Romi were the successful penalty takers for ESU.

Players and team officials of champion team NYTHC  pose with trophy _______________________________________________

Earlier, H Mary curled in a free kick to open the ESU score in the 20th minute which was neutralised by S Tejibala in the 65th minute.

Tejibala bagged both the Best Player and Top Scorer awards carrying Rs 2000 each while Fair Play Team award of Rs 3000 went to AMMA, Andro.

Custodian of the cham-pion team Sh Jyotimala and ESU’s K Rameshori were adjudged the tournament’s best goalkeeper and best defender respectively.

Best Player was awarded to Tejibala of chapion team NYTHC. She shared top scorer awards with ESU's star striker Komlabati. Both scored six goals each in the tournament.

The winners were awarded Rs 15,000 and the runners-up Rs 10,000.

The prizes were donated by different individuals and firms.

( Source: AFC)

Imphal, Jan 23: On the fourth day of Loktak Brigade Republic Day Football Tournament the All Kwakta Sports Association (AKSA) defeated Longmei Youth Club (LYC) 2-1.  In the second match Modern Ideal Youth Club (MIYC), Thanga defeated Kharam Phallen Youth Club (KPYC) 6-0. 


The semi final matches will be played tomorrow. The first semi final will be played between Phubala Football Club (PFC) and All Kwakta Sports Association (AKSA) while the second semi final match will witness Nachou Football Club (NFC) and Modern Ideal Youth Club (MIYC), Thanga locking horns for the berth in the final.

Imphal, January 23: ESU, Wangkhei after defeating YWC, Langthabal 3-1 in the second semi final match entered the final of the 8th Soraisam Ronika Memorial Junior Girls’ Football Tournament 2012 organised by the Imphal East District Football Association at Khuman Lampak Main Stadium.

W Kamlapati of ESU drew first blood in the 2nd minute of the match putting his team on the lead. He further extended the lead into 2-0 with another goal in the 13th minute of the match. The third goal of ESU was scored by K Tony in the 51st minute.

On the other hand the lone goal of YWC, Langthabal was scored by S Rinary in the 66th minute of the match. The final match will be played between ESU, Wangkhei and NYTHC, Okram Chuthek.

The Manipur state League (MSL) has been organised since 2006 by the All Manipur Football Association under the Vision India program with guidance from the AFC and the AIFF. The league is a 12 team affair which is played on a home-and-away format over a period of six to eight months. The duration of the league depends on factors like weather and political stability in the state. NISA from Thangmeiband are the defending champions, they have actually won the league in the last three years; while the first edition had been won by Tiddim Road Athletic Union.

Source : Sangai Express

Inter-district football in March

IMPHAL, Jan 21: To coincide with Kangleipak Students’ Association’s Kangla Mega Sports Festival during the Yaoshang Festival, All Manipur Football Association will organise an under-17 boys inter district football tournament for which DSAs/DFAs are informed to complete entry formalities within February 10.
The tournament is also a part of AMFA’s Youth Development programme under the sponsorship of KSA.

Republic Day football begins

IMPHAL, Jan 21: Longmei Youth Club (Nonei) edged out People’s Elite Trust (Moirang) 4-2 via the tie-breaker while Khordak Youth Organisation crushed Aigejang Football Club 3-0 on the opening day of the Republic Day Football tournament at Moirang College ground on January 20.


According to a PIB (DW) release, shoot-out was applied to decide winner of the Nonei versus Moirang after normal period ended in a 3-3 stalemate, which the former eventually triumphed at 4-2.

Source : Sangai Express

Imphal, Jan. 20: Eastern Sporting Union(ESU) Wangkhei Palace Ground  sailed into the semi-finals afte a big win . The defeated NIVSO Keibi , Imphal East  by 8-1 goals in the 8th S. Ronika Memorial Junior Girls’ Football Tournament at Khuman Lampak main stadium.

Source: The Sangai Express
IMPHAL, Jan 19: NEROCA, Sangakpham stormed into the summit round of the Loktak Power Station-sponsored 5th Loktak Trophy football tournament with a 4-1 demolition of NISA, Thangmeiband at Moirang Multi-purpose Higher Secondary School ground.

Kh Satish opened the NEROCA score in the 9th minute and rounded off the thumping victory with a 73rd minute strike in the first semifinal match against the Thangmeiband side today.

While Michael Joute netted the NISA consolation goal in the 42nd minute, Ph Vandona (13th) and Kh Roshan (39th) bulged the NEROCA victory margin.

The second semifinal tomorrow will be between MPSC and AIM, Khabam.

IMPHAL, Jan 19: Md Amir Khan scored the all important goal as Manipur began its campaign in the 48th Junior National Football Championship for Dr BC Roy Trophy (tier-I) with a 1-0 defeat of Delhi at Siliguri (West Bengal) today.

Amir Khan netted the matchwinner in the 65th minute.
In the day’s other match, Karnataka edged past Assam by a solitary goal.
Manipur will face Karna-taka on January 23.

In the North East Qualifier for 34th Sub Junior National Football Championship for Co-Cola Mir Iqbal Hussain Trophy which is being held in Tinsukia Assam, Manipur defeated Maghalaya 3-0 in the opening match.

Imphal, January 19: The installation of artificial turf underway at the Rising Athletic Union (RAU) Ground with funding from the FIFA under the project " Win in India , with India" will be completed by 2nd week of February , according to L. Ranjit Roy, Secretary All Manipur Football Association .


FIFA's approved company  Limonta Sports  is handling the installation work of the artificial field turf at the National Sports Academy, Imphal football field popularly known as RAU) Ground.


Manipur being a place for AFC Vision India Project, All India Football Federation alloted the share to lay the turf in Manipur. International governing body of football FIFA sanctioned for ten pitches in India under the " Win in India , with India". Imphal is the among the selected place by AIFF. Goa got share two artificial turfs. In the north eastern region, Magalaya had one share in Shillong.


It may be mentioned that Manipur has produced many international footballer for India and many players of the state are presently playing at the different major clubs of the country and four Manipuri players are included in the current nation team.



Officials of Limonta Sports who arrived here on January 8 have begun the installation work. Laying of the artificial turfs on the ground was completed today. Applying glue at the joining areas of the turf will begin soon. After which, the only remaining work for the installation is the laying of rubber granules and white grains above the 4 inches turfs. However, constructions of gallery, dressing rooms and drains which will be the responsibility of the state government are still pending.


Secretary of All Manipur Football Association (AMFA) L Ranjit Roy told the media that the installation work of the artificial turf will be completed soon. After the installation, FIFA will hand over the ground to AMFA in a formal function. State government is also speeding up its construction works at the site. FIFA has also provided a machine to clean the turf, he said. It may be mentioned that the total cost earmarked by FIFA for the installation of artificial turf on the RAU Ground is USD 609,750.


Due to three month long national Highways blockades, the work progress of the installation have been delayed. In the late month of 2008, FIFA team inspected the purposed site. It is just one month to realize the dream of  artificial pitch in Manipur.