New Delhi: All India Football Federation (AIFF) general secretary Alberto Colaco on Monday said that the structure and format of the National Football League (NFL) need to be changed to make it a more attractive and popular championship.

Asked to make his observations on the just concluded 10th NFL, which suffered too many interruptions and problems, Colaco said he has been suggesting to bring fresh ideas in the NFL for the past few seasons, but it has always been stalled by the unwilling clubs. “A couple of seasons back we made a suggestion to change the format of the national league,” Colaco said.

“Our idea was to accommodate more teams for the NFL and divide it into three regional basis. There could have been more matches at the regional level and things would have been more attractive at the final rounds. But when we tabled the papers in the core committee meeting, we found the clubs unwilling to accept the changes,” he stated.

The AIFF secretary said that he was initially happy with the way things were going as some of the members then suggested a few modifications in the new format, which would have made the show better. But some of the Goan teams felt that it would reduce the number of teams from the state in the NFL. “The fear was unwarranted as after the suggested modifications, the number of teams from Goa would have remained the same,” he said.

Changes, Colaco said, is needed to make the National League a more-lively one.

“For the past 10 years, we have been following the same pattern. Time is to make changes and experiment with new formats. If we stick to old things that won’t take us anywhere.”

Citing examples of Japan, the AIFF secretary said, the national league of the Asian powerhouse has earned name and fame all over the world because of its ability to experiment and find out the best possible way. “They even once decided to apply penalty shootout to break the deadlock in every drawn encounter. Later they discarded the idea, but they were never afraid to give things a trial and error run.”

Colaco agreed that the problem in acquiring venues is one of the primary reasons for the NFL to suffer from so many hiccups. “This year we plan to chalk out every details for the NFL a couple of months before the start of the tournament.

The LOCs will also have to careful and inform us well in advance about the problems they are facing.”