Kolkata: Either you win it or you don’t. Finishing second in a league means nothing for a football club if it wants to fill the trophy cabinet. But there are some clubs for whom a second-place finish, that, too, as debutants, could act as encouragement to continue the work they have been doing for years.

In the 2017-18 I-League , Imphal-based North Eastern Re-Organising Cultural Association Football Club, better known as NEROCA FC , fell agonizingly short of the top spot. However, they dominated the All India Football Federation ( AIFF ) Awards on Thursday, bagging four out of the nine awards available.

Ahead of the Super Cup , NEROCA CEO-cum-owner Thangjam Naoba Singh opened up about his future plans for the club, the need of a proper youth development programme for clubs, how AIFF’s indecision regarding the roadmap of Indian football is hurting small clubs like NEROCA etc. Excerpts…

You finished second in I-League but dominated the AIFF Awards. How does it feel?

I would say it’s a mixed feeling. We are happy and disappointed at the same time that we missed out on the opportunity in the end. But winning four awards is like winning the I-League all over again. I am very happy that we won what we deserved. Being able to come up as the runners-up in the debut season is big deal. It’s beyond everyone’s expectations. Finishing the season on a high will encourage the players and team management to start next season on a positive note.

But this is not the end of the season, you have Super Cup.

By ‘end of season’ I meant the I-League season. We are eager to make it big in Super Cup. However, the way AIFF planned it in the end is really disappointing. Initially the plan was for a league-cum-knock-out tournament and a home-away format to the delight of home fans. We are not afraid that we might lose the first match and come back home but we lose out on the opportunity of playing few more matches against the top teams as it’s fully knockout now.

Till now there’s no clarity about the ISL-I-League merger. Is that becoming a point of concern for you?

Yes, certainly. Merger or no merger, there should be a proper roadmap for Indian football. We don’t know how long the next season will be, so we don’t know what kind of a contract we should offer a player. This is killing us. If federation decides one or two months before a league or tournament starts that how long it will run, then how can we prepare or build a good team for the season with a small budget? ISL No. 1, I-League No. 2 or vice-versa, whatever they decide, they should decide fast. Don’t keep everything on hold.

In I-League Minerva and NEROCA finished ahead of Mohun Bagan and East Bengal. Is this a statement against the traditional clubs’ lackadaisical attitude towards proper youth development programme?

It’s true that youth development programme should be taken very seriously for the clubs to exist and for smaller clubs like us, it’s all the more important. We don’t have sponsors to help us buy foreign players with lot of money. And football is a team game where individual performance doesn’t decide the outcome of the match most of the time. We rely on local players, Indian players, so that they can grow. I feel Minerva have a proper academy, they have done really well to prove that if you are sincere in your approach, you will succeed. Even NEROCA have 99% local players apart from the foreigners. Look at Bengaluru FC, they have been working hard for the last five years in the developmental area. This is the way forward. Every club needs to be self-sustainable.

