NEW DELHI: After setting up its state-of-the-art facilities in Udaipur and Goa, Vedanta Ltd on Monday unveiled plans to spread its wings to the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh, as it aims to build a development model for grassroots football across the country.
Hindustan Zinc, a Vedanta Group company, launched “Zinc Football”, the country’s first ever ‘technology-hinged football training’ integrating the unique F-Cube technology last week at Zawar in Udaipur.
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 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 the future.
Vedanta also has the Sesa Football initiative in Goa, which has been running since 1999 and has gone on to become a leading academy for training and nurturing football talent in India.
Commenting on the initiatives, Annanya Agarwal, president, Vedanta Football, said: “At Vedanta, 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 set up state-of-the-art football academies like the ones we have in Goa and Rajasthan.”
Agarwal, the son of Vedanta Ltd chairman Navin Agarwal, spoke to Asian Age on his vision for setting-up football academies for both boys and girls in India and his way forward.
Agarwal says: “The right age of catching children if you want them to play for India is 5-12 years. I have this vision that India should play 2026 World Cup. And for that, corporates like Vedanta have to come forward and provide long lasting and sustainable infrastructure.”
He added: “Women football teams have fared much better even if there is not much infrastructure available for them in the country. Even though we have 30 boys in Zinc Football Academy in Udaipur, I have strong focus on bringing women football players forward and provide them excellent infrastructure both in Udaipur as well as in Goa. I want to pioneer women’s football team in India.”
In Rajasthan, Hindustan Zinc has searched for talents while going deep in the rural areas. 4,500 of children were scanned and finally 30 children were shortlisted. The company has opened up 64 community football centres, known more as Zinc Football Schools and have developed Zinc Football Academy at Zawar, a tribal area about 45 km from Udaipur. 30 children are being trained in this academy that is fully supported by Hindustan Zinc, which has also taken the responsibility of giving scholarships to all the students for their education.
