Karwar Rotaractors hold football tournament

All roads led to the Maladevi grounds at Karwar in Uttar Kannada with 15 ­college and neighbourhood football teams engaged in a tough battle to win the first-ever two-day ­Rotaract Charity Cup 2018 in September.

RAC Karwar, D 3170, organised the football tournament with support from its parent RC Karwar and funding from sponsors Monginis JMJ Enterprises and Swagat Jewellers. “We were able to create the right impact with our motto ‘Calling out the unsung heroes of football’ through this high-decibel and high-visibility sporting event,” says Rtr Junaid Sayed, President, RAC Karwar. In the closely fought finals, United Brothers prevailed over Karwar Medical College with a penalty shootout.

RC Karwar IPP Rajesh Vernekar, owner of Swagat ­Jewellers, ­presented the ­trophy to the winners who also received a cash prize of `10,000 from R J ­Rodrigues, owner of Monginis JMJ ­Enterprises. The ­runners-up were ­presented a cash prize of `5,000, sponsored by Rtn George Fernandez, and Darshan Angadi of Karwar ­Medical College, the Player of the Tournament, was given `1,000 by Rtn Dr Arjun Upadhya. Rtn Dr Sameer Nayak feted the runners-up.

Another player Aaron from Karwar FC was ­chosen as the Emerging Player of the ­Tournament. RC ­Karwar President Anmol Revankar, ­Rotarians Amaranth Shetty, ­Ganpati ­Baadkar and Archana Shetty ­distributed other prizes to the top performers.

Good rapport with sponsors

Having held a cricket match (Rotaractors vs Rotary) in March which was also sponsored by Monginis and Swagat ­Jewellers, “we have struck a good ­personal ­relationship with these two corporates,” explains Sayed who is gung-ho over the grand success of the football ­tournament.
“I can see that our sponsors are also obsessed with social causes like we do.”

With 13 active ­members and “few more to be inducted in the months ahead”, the club has taken up small-budget projects like tree plantations and helping their parent club in ­distributing SCAW (Sleeping ­Children Around the World) kits for needy students in government schools.

On the source of funding for Rotaract projects, Sayed explains, “every Rotarian used to donate for our outreach activities. In past, there was no need for major resources.” However, the football ­tournament required funding from corporates and logistic support from Rotary “which we got in ­abundance and ­looking forward to similar ­support from them.”