“The AFC delegation came and had a look at the infrastructure, to see if it meets the standards. They seemed pretty satisfied,” AR Khaleel, Karnataka State Football Association president, said.
The delegation consisted of Benjamin Tan (competitions manager), Haoming Chen (marketing manager) and AIFF representative Roma Khanna (club licensing manager). “As all the home matches of HASC will be held here, they need to make sure that everything is upto scratch. We just need to put some finishing touches to spruce up the stadium a bit, but apart from that there is no problem,” Khaleel added.
HASC sports secretary R Rajan said all that remained as far as the long-term future of the club was concerned is the step to make it a separate commercial entity. “It (the inspection) all went well. There were no real concerns. The AFC is happy with all our infrastructure. We are heading towards making ourselves a separate entity and it is just a matter of time before it happens,” Rajan said.
“We are looking at the methods adopted by public sector clubs like Air India, to follow the path taken by them. But at the end of the day, when it is a public sector company and a huge one like HAL, there will be some slight delays. But the wheel has been set in motion and we will fulfill all criteria by the deadline which is the end of the coming season,” he added.
Asked about HASC’s plans for the next season, Rajan said they were looking at players and all deals will be completed as soon as possible. “We are looking to definitely bring in one more foreigner to make it 3+1. We are also looking to sign some experienced players so that we have a good blend of youth and experience,” he said.
Meanwhile, winners and runners-up of the four leagues -- Super Division, ‘A’ Division, ‘B’ Division, ‘C’ Division -- were presented with trophies at the Bangalore Football stadium. Traditional exhibition matches were played between the top-two finishers of the Super Division and ‘A’ Division. ADE, who won the ‘A’ Division title, beat Student’s Union 4-0 while Super Division Champions MEG fell 0-1 to ASC.