SRINAGAR: Getting death threats barely 15 days after his two Labradors were poisoned and killed, Football coach from Brazil, Juan Marcos Troia, is fast losing trust in authorities and planning to pack his bags for good if help does not arrive, for sure and quick.
“I do not want this to happen. It will completely wipe out five years of committed effort to bring Kashmir on top of the football map besides channelizing youth’s energy into something constructive. But with neither any help to back up my academy, nor any assistance by the authorities, including police, to ensure me and my family’s safety, I do not see if a choice remains,” says
Marcos.
The last ray of hope Marcos is latching onto is the promise of assistance from Union Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Ajay Maken.
“He has promised to sort out things for me. Besides, taking care of the security concerns he has agreed to look into if he can set up a covered football ground and assist financially too,” says Marcos.
To his credit, Marcos has turned his Academy into a formidable club by coaching over 1000 students in a field that is less than one third of a football ground and remains submerged in knee deep muddy water for most part of 6-7 months when there is no frost or snow.
In less than five years, Marcos’s International Sports Academy Trust (ISAT) has made a mark in Jammu and Kashmir by galloping from B to A division and then to Super League competing with the ranks of J&K Bank.
His students suspect sinister politics of a rival group behind giving death threat to Marcos who has also been labelled as a missionary trying to convert Muslims into Christianity.
“He has given us love and respect. We too love him like an elder brother. The claims are absolutely bogus or else we would have come across at least one example of conversion,” says footballer Wasim Khan.
Marcos fell in love with Kashmir the day he established his academy in Srinagar in end 2006. More than the beauty of the place, it was the love and zeal for football among the poor Kashmiri youth that inspired Marcos and his wife Prissila to set up a base in Kashmir.
“I was a lecturer of Portuguese in Jamia Millia Islamia University. Marcos and his Football academy in Gitanjali Enclave were doing well enough. But the refusal of All India Football Association to affiliate his Academy as a club also weighed heavy on Marcos’s mind. An invitation by the JKFA did the trick besides lukewarm response among Delhi’s cricket crazy youth,” says Prissila.
However, the Kashmir dream soon turned sour when promises of help setting up an academy/club were cold shouldered by the authorities and Marcos had to depend solely on his sponsors in Brazil to run the club.
“I did not lose heart because on the first day of registration we enrolled more than 350 students. With each passing year the number increased and today ISAT has over 1,000 keen students.
I feel good when I see my students sweating hard to become a player instead of joining the group of stone pelters or taking up guns,” he says.