Has it back fired or not?

Since the Club’s formation in 1979, Club Valencia has taken part in all major sports events held in the country. Some of these include athletics, table tennis, badminton, basketball, volleyball, football and so on.

All these started to change in the early 90’s with the introduction of paying wages to the football squad by Club Valencia. Eyebrows were back then whether this was a sustainable way of managing sports clubs in the country as there was no mechanism established for Clubs to finance themselves and there were no regulations to monitor this. We can say that this was a very bold step taken by Valencia in developing sports and respecting the player’s contribution towards achieving the Club’s targets.

We all know that back then there were 3 major Clubs in the country in football namely Victory, New Radiant, Valencia and 1 or 2 clubs competing for the fourth spot. These clubs were mainly run by very dedicated people and those who were at the club very dedicated as well. There was team spirit and a sense of belonging to their clubs, they were motivated and lastly they were unmovable from their respective clubs.

In the early 90’s Valencia signed contracts with 2 established Victory players and of course there is the famous capture of the signature of Kuda Musa from New Radiant. This started a series of events of players moving from one club to the other from season to season.

That was the story back then. If we take a very close look at various stages of this we know that eyebrows raised back then were justified. Even at present most Clubs do not have the mechanism to finance themselves. The Clubs are run on a donation basis by faithful supporters or rich entrepreneurs. When one entrepreneur or supporter is financially low the “management” would turn to the other and so on.

Is this the way to manage clubs in Maldives?

Take a look at the present scenario, VB Sports is over financed, New Radiant is well managed, Victory is organized and Valencia is in a sorry status.

Its been 2 years since the new management took over promising every thing under the sun to the supporters. Things did look rosy last year playing 2 finals winning one.

But it is a different story this year, the present squad is weak, they have not won a single trophy this season. The clubs manager was sacked because of an interview regarding lack of finance at the club and the club was not able to bring in any foreign players for Cup Winners Cup and FA Cup. The result being not even being able to qualify for the finals of these 2 tournaments. Lying second to bottom in Dhiraagu Dhiveli League 2008 the future looks very bleak for Valencia.

What Valencia started in early 90’s seems to have back fired on them? Will Valencia be able to compete with the other big 3 clubs financially in the upcoming season? One thing is for sure if Valencia fails to qualify for the second round of Dhiraagu Dhiveli League 2008 Valencia will be a thing of the past.