Another Good news for the Indian Football. Mukesh Ambani, the fourth richest man in the World according to Forbes, seems to be taking interest in developing young Indian Footballers. In March, Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and IMG tied up to develop, market and manage sports in India. On their first ever tie up with AIFF, the joint venture of RIL and IMG decided to sponsor 16 India U-14 boys to spend nine months at the IMG Soccer Academy in Florida.
This partnership between RIL & IMG turned out to be a boon for Indian football. In the U-14 festival held in Jamshedpur early this year, 22 boys were selected and were sent to Iran for the AFC U-14 festival. There, they twice manage to hold the host with the score line reading 1-1 and 2-2 respectively. From these 22 boys, 16 names were shortlisted for the training in US.
IMG is one of the world’s largest sports management company based in US. The IMG Soccer Academy has seven Soccer fields which are used by US Soccer Residency Program which oversaw the development of players like Landon Donovan, Oguchi Onyewu, Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley.
This initiative by a corporate is first of its kind in India and it will surely mark a new era in the development of the most beautiful game of the world. Hopefully other corporate house should also chip in with sponsorship of this kind to take Indian football to a new level.
The 16 Member Squad:
Goalkeepers: Agyapal Singh (Punjab), Supratim Bhattacharjee (West Bengal)
Defenders: Anis Kaitharia (Kerala), Jimmy Singh Maibam (Chandigarh), Mohammed Sajid Dhoi (Chandigarh), Myron Senzie Mendes (Goa), Nitin Jyal (Uttarakhand)
Midfielders: Germanpreet Singh (Punjab), Hanan Javed Nellikavil (Kerala), Harmanjot Singh (Punjab), Lalrammwana (Mizoram), Manraj Singh (Punjab), Siddharth Mukhi (Jharkhand)
Strikers: Alen Deory (Assam), Laldantsanga (Mizoram), Uttam Rai (Delhi)
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