Interview with Udit Sheth, the man who brought Beach Soccer to India

Udit Sheth is the MD and CEO of TransStadia. TransStadia is the company responsible for getting beach soccer to India with Barefoot 2013, a tournament being held in Goa during 5-10 February, 2013. Sportskeeda caught up with Udit for a quick chat about the tournament, and the future of the game.

What was the idea behind getting beach soccer to India?

First of all, as a company, TransStadia are already deeply involved with sport and we have been working on sports conferences and infrastructure. Also, we were working on a similar concept two years back. Hence, we got in touch with the Beach Soccer governing body, Beach Soccer Worldwide, and took it forward with them and what you see today is the culmination of the effort we have put to get Beach Soccer to India.

Can you tell us something about the execution of the whole event, considering it is happening for the first time in India?

This was an event of a pretty big magnitude. So, first and foremost, we had to get all the necessary permissions from the government to have such an event on the beach. Once that was achieved, it has pretty much gone very smoothly.

What about your future plans? Is this going to be an annual event?

There are two sides to this. We are launching the sport and as the sport grows, we will keep on increasing the number of such festivals. We will also be increasing the entertainment quotient in different forms and will be giving it a festive feel. We are expecting around 10,000 people over the 5 days at the venue in Calangute beach, Goa. 64 teams have already signed up for this. We are looking to unearth some talent in the sport and take the event to other cities so that we can bring more and more of India into the sport.

The event has been packaged very innovatively. I’ve never heard of a football event with a party atmosphere. So how did that idea come up?

Globally, Beach Soccer is associated with music, fashion, party and they bring about an entire samba atmosphere to it. So, we thought, what better place to have it in India than at Goa, where the carnival is currently underway. We are launching the music on a slightly higher platform and getting the best artists to perform at the event since we want to give the audience the best experience.

What other sporting properties can we expect from TransStadia? And what other activities are you planning to invest in?

Beach Soccer and Music, as such, is like a black hole. There is no end to it. You keep diving into it and the bigger it gets. So, we would like to cover this completely first. The other sport we have invested in is boxing. Right now, there are issues with the IOA and IBF but I am sure once they are resolved, we will get back into the frame of boxing. Our infrastructure is quite big currently and we also run a talent development centre. We are also the knowledge partners for the Goan government for the development of football as a sport.

Can we expect any big celebrities to turn up for the event?

To start off there are 4 I-league teams participating. There are team from clubs like Churchill Brother’s, Dempo, Sporting club de Goa and also a team from Maharashtra. It will be an environment packed with music and we are expecting all the owners of the teams there. We have some very famous DJs playing music and we obviously expect quite a few celebrities to be present at our event.