Beware Cricket, here we come – THE REBIRTH

Football or Soccer is undoubtedly the most followed sport in the world. You count Brazil, Argentina, England, Spain, Germany (& the list goes on) in the list of Football crazy nation but one nation is not behind in this list and slowly and steadily catching up with the world. INDIA.

With the increase of football viewers and players in India, India is slowly becoming a huge football base in the world. And to take advantage of this and look for players for future many clubs have entered India for talent. Latest in this category is the European Champions – FC Barcelona.

After Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Bayern Munich, now the world’s best football club Barcelona has come to India to set up its first training school with Delhi-based Conscient Football.

Barcelona’s football nursery FCBEscoles will be conducting camps at the Heritage School in Gurgaon to train kids in the age-group of 6-14. Conscient Football is a part of the Conscient Group, which owns the Heritage Schools in the NCR region.

FCBscoles director Xevi Marce said the club will be providing top coaches from Camp Nou to run the camps here and they plan to train 10,000 children in the next three years.

“We don’t promise to create a Messi here; we will not promise anything that we are not sure of. For us this is a social project and we want to support India. We have to go step by step,” the Spaniard said.
Xevi said the camp will be no different from the ones that are held in Barcelona. “At the camp the youngsters will be undergoing all the programmes that are held at Camp Nou. We will also bring 4-5 coaches who would not only train the young footballers, but also Indian coaches,” he said.

They don’t assure converting an amateur player to professional with this academy, but this will surely help all the youngsters in our country who aspire to be a top footballer one day.

The football scenario in India has changed considerably of the past couple of years. Associations between large corporate and I-League clubs will help football become a more broad based and popular sport. Latest in the news is Pune FC. Days after becoming the first and the only Indian I-League team to play against an English Premier League club — Blackburn Rovers, Pune FC have signed a two-year deal with information technology giant Infosys for an undisclosed amount to promote football in the city.

This surely proves the football fever is spreading slowly in our country. Poultry giants Venky’s already acquired Blackburn Rovers – EPL club and doing a good job introducing them to India with a friendly match.

Even the camp by Barcelona will be spread across other Metros and A Cities after 1 year.

In a Cricket crazy nation, people have seen a ray of hope for football and football talent and I am sure we are not far from that period where football will be taken as a serious professional sport beating the IPLs and NCLs of the world.

Keeping my fingers crossed and praying for the rebirth of this game in India