Initiative to encourage football at grassroots proposed

Vedanta Limited has launched a plan to take its initiatives in the sport to the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

AIFF Girls' grassroot football festival in Bengaluru in December 2015. (representational image)

In a bid to encourage football at the grassroots across the country, Vedanta Limited Monday launched a plan to take its initiatives in the sport to the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Hindustan Zinc, a Vedanta group company, had launched its grassroots development program, Zinc Football, in Udaipur last week.

The initiative proposed to the Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore involves the establishment of a full-fledged residential academy like the one at Zawar, Udaipur, with world-class facilities and the country’s first ever ‘technology-hinged football training’ — integrating the unique F-Cube technology into football development at all levels.

The residential academy, which is at the centre of this football drive, currently has 30 budding footballers under the age group of 14 years, handpicked among more than 4500 aspirants through various scouting camps held over the past year.

The academy can house up to 60 kids and plans to increase its roster in future.

“We want to take Indian football forward and have charted out a plan at two levels. One is grassroots development for the sport wherein every child who wants to play the sport has access to good facilities and second is a football excellence programme, where we want to setup state-of-the-art football academies like the ones we have in Goa and Rajasthan,” President, Vedanta Football, Annanya Agarwal said.