Ortega no longer on our shopping list: Armando Colaco
MARGAO: Nigerian striker Yakubu Yusuf is one of the strikers I-league
club Dempo Sports club are planning to have on their rooster said the
club coach-cum-secretary Armando Colaco said yesterday
Dempo are reluctant to renew Ranty Martins’ contract and talks are on
with Yusuf have began to fill Martins’ void.
“We are in talks with Yakubu,” disclosed Colaco, who has taken four
months leave from his job at the Goa-based club to coach the Indian
national team,
Yusuf is no stranger to India having played for the last two seasons
for current I-League winners Salgaocar SC and had earlier turned out
for the now disbanded Mahindra United Mumbai, East Bengal Kolkotta and
Churchill Bros SC Goa in the I-league.
Meanwhile a report a Qatari Newspaper The Peninsula said former
Argentina play-maker Ariel Ortega has dropped plans to play for the
Indian I-league team Dempo Sports Club after talks between the two
parties failed to move beyond the preliminary stage.
“We were in constant touch with Ortega. But the talks collapsed as
Ortega was asking for 20 per cent share of our merchandise sale. That
was not possible because we have no merchandise sale,” said Colaco,
who is Doha with the Indian team for a friendly against Qatar today.
India later on fly to Abu Dhabi to take on UAE in the double leg 2014
FIFA World Cup qualifiers on July 24.
Dempo SC is one of the 14 teams taking part in the Indian National
League rechristened as I-League in the 2007-08 season. The Goan club
won the inaugural version of the I-league and again in 2009-10 season.
Three years ago, Dempo SC created history as they became the first
Indian team to reach the semi-finals of the AFC Cup – Asia’s top event
– after a 4-3 victory against Singapore’s Home United.
The Goan club finished third in the last edition of the I-league which
was won by another Goan club Salgaocar Sports Club.
Ortega represented Argentina in the 1994, 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
He was also a member of the team that won the silver medal at the 1996
Summer Olympics.
Infamously temperamental, the 37-year-old played for some of the top
European clubs including Fenerbahçe, Parma, Sampdoria, Valencia, and
Newell’s Old Boys and is currently at All Boys in Argentina on loan
from River Plate.
Dempo are on the lookout for two foreign players to fill void created
by the transfer and nonrenewable contracts of Brazilian play-maker
Beto and striker Martins. The Brazilian opted to leave Dempo for
Churchill Brothers for the new season.
In Beto and Martins from Nigeria, Dempo had two of the best foreign
recruits in India for the last few seasons.
The Executive Committee of All India Football Federation (AFFF)
decided on Thursday to allow I-league clubs to register four overseas
players for domestic competition with a condition that only three can
take to field in one go.
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