ranchi the sports department in its bid to promote football at a time when the entire country is in the grip of cricket mania will organize a threeday statelevel interschool competition in november which will end at shahid birsa munda stadium in morabadi we have taken this initiative to promote football in jharkhand the department is doing its best but we also appeal to players and committees to come forward and promote the game said sarojini lakra deputy director sports department on thursday senior players and coaches in the state feel football has been neglected unlike other sports poor infrastructure and ineffective policy often force youngsters to quit football and focus on other sports improper training facilities and lack of initiatives had badly affected the game lack of opportunities is another big problem some of my students ask me can we find jobs by playing this game what am i supposed to tell them said sarojnath mahto a national football referee who also runs a football club the tourney which will begin on november 25 will have three age categories 14 17 and 19 the winning team will participate in the tournament of school games federation of india talking about the solution to the issue sarojnath added further first of all i feel there is a need of national football club in the state like we have in west bengal manipur goa and other states of the country also in order to train these footballers proper and effective policies should be made which the state lacks till date it should start from school level and each player should be given at least five chances one can not decide the talent in a knockout tournament and the last thing is that proper placement facility should be made and implemented soon we have talent in the state but we need to boost confidence in them so that they do not quit this sport the under 14 women team from jharkhand participated in gasteiz cup in spain in july this year and was placed third these were the 18 tribal girls representing yuwa india under 14 team the state provides rs 3000 as stipend to all the residential sportsperson present at 28 places and also stipends are paid to day boarding centre studentsthe problem is people in the state lack initiative they have to come forward as we cannot run after each of them added sarojini on initiatives taken by the state to motivate football but most of the sportsperson dont feel the same in the name of football competition in the state we have only the goat khassi tournaments i dont know till what time i will be able to continue playing football i have to support my family and i know by playing football in this state i will certainly die starving said deepak oroan a local player