Sports For All (SFA), a unique multi-sport competition platform for all schools in and around Mumbai, is set for its second edition in a bigger and grander avatar. The marquee event will be held from December 5 to 24 this year.
Introduced last year to identify and nurture future sporting champions mainly in Olympic sporting disciplines, SFA showed promise in its first season- as many as 6,230 students from 302 schools participated in the competition which had nine sports in the first year. This year, however, SFA will offer students an opportunity to compete in 26 disciplines of sport. The event will be held at the revamped, DY Patil sports complex.
Speaking at an event to inaugurate SFA’s second season, the man responsible for executing this, Rishikesh Joshi said, “Initially schools didn’t register for SFA. They thought it was a scam. They couldn’t believe something like this is possible”, he said.
What is unique about this competition? Every match is caught on camera, professionally recorded. This results in a huge video pool for scouts and coaches to see and select talented students. Every participant will also be given a Unique Identification Number to solve issues like age forging which happens quite often at the grassroots level.
Important services like Physiotherapy and medical care will also be available to all students across all sporting disciplines. Around 400 injuries were solved during last year’s competitions. Thus ensuring, students need not worry about the repercussions of an injury, whether severe or small.
“The inception of a sporting system like SFA has marked a crucial change in the way inter-school sport will be played in Mumbai from hereon. It is a system that is tailor made to enable schools to govern their sporting departments more efficiently.
SFA Mumbai 2016 is going to see the birth of so many more sporting champions. We have received numerous queries from various schools already and are confident of reaching a target of 35,000 talents from schools across Mumbai”, declared Rishikesh Joshi
