Goa 18^th August 2016 :  FC Goa is presently conducting it’s first FC Goa Skills Programme in Ahmedabad lead by the team’s Grassroots Development Director Gavin Araujo, an AFC A license Coach. Over the last two years Araujo has been spearheading FC Goa’s ambitious Grassroots Development Programme and has overseen much of the club’s work at the Grassroots Level.

Keeping in line with its commitment to grassroots development, the FC Goa Skills Programme is an outreach programme aimed at training coaches involved in grassroots development programmes and honing the footballing skills of young players. The keen students include young talented football players (girls and boys) and female coaches.

The programme, presently underway will see 20 coaches and 70 young players gain practical and theoretical knowledge on the latest training methods as imparted by the team of FC Goa coaches. Over the next eight days Araujo and his team will train coaches on the various practical aspects including warm up sessions and its benefits, goalkeeping techniques, conditioning and attacking, dribbling and other related techniques. Coaches and students will also head to the classroom where they will be imparted theoretical knowledge on the principles of coaching a team of players, identifying and defining football related problem techniques and style of play, designing training sessions for optimum performance, factors affecting performance and the learning curve of a coach, among other subjects.  Confidence building measures are also part of the programme.

The week long training session will culminate with an FC Goa Open day tournament between the young players of the grassroots programme.

FC Goa’s Grassroots development programme which commenced two years ago saw FC Goa reaching out to over 20,000 children and actively mentoring and coaching over 1300 students in the sport of football.

Over the last few months FC Goa’s Grassroots Coaches have been working closely with Goa’s young talented footballers while mentoring and coaching Goa’s young footballers. Araujo leads the grassroots programme and is supplemented by a team of 4 assistant coaches and 8 Grassroots coaches, besides 16 Physical Education teachers from various schools inducted in the programme.

FC Goa’s Grassroots Development Programme saw a tremendous response since its inception. The objective of the festival is to introduce children to the game of football in a friendly playing environment, where they are encouraged to experience football and enjoy playing the beautiful game while developing their inherent talent.

 1300 educational institutes register with 1700 teams in eight cities  Digital broadcast of 3000 matches to help in talent scouting

Press Release

Mumbai, 17 th August 2016: 

Reliance Foundation Youth Sports – the campus sports initiative recently launched by the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi in Delhi – has witnessed a rush of school and college institutes enrolling for the inaugural year of school & college football competitions starting on 28 th August 2016.

Over the last two weeks, Reliance Foundation Youth Sports have received entries from 1300 educational institutes who have registered over 1700 teams for the school and college football competitions. The competitions will be held in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Goa, Guwahati, Kochi and Pune starting with qualifying rounds, followed by city championships and the national finals.

With 13 more days to go for the last date of registrations, Reliance Foundation Youth Sports expects the number to go up across the four categories of competition, Junior Boys, Senior Boys, Senior Girls and College Boys.

The Reliance Foundation Youth Sports football competition will be held in association with All India Football Federation (AIFF) who have lauded the ambitious football campaign promoting the beautiful game among the youth.

Mr Kushal Das, General Secretary, AIFF says, “The RFYS campus football competition is a welcome step to bolster the building blocks of football grassroots development as it integrates with AIFF’s vision to promote youth participation. With over 3000 matches being broadcast on digital platforms in the inaugural year, this could be one of the biggest platforms for talent scouting across India and provide the youth a defined career path.”