Meet Bhaichung Bhutia, a retired Indian footballer of Sikkimese-Bhutia descent who played as a striker. Bhutia is considered to be the torchbearer of Indian football in the international arena.
After his retirement, he felt that there are some very good players that come from weaker sections of society who because of lack of funds are not able to fulfil their dreams of becoming a professional footballer.
Indian Football Foundation (IFF) is a step in this direction — as it will provide those opportunities to the most talented players irrespective of their socio-economic background. IFF provides organised long-term support to budding young footballers in India. With a strong focus on youth development, they look at supporting footballers in the age group of 7 to 19 years by providing various financial and non-financial resources for their well-being and development towards professional football.
Through this campaign, they aim to support 25 underprivileged talented children and turn them into quality footballers who can bring laurels for their state and country. After a rigorous scouting activity, IFF has selected these scholars. The children come from different backgrounds but they have one thing in common — the love for football.
IFF will provide them with all the football equipment and, in association with Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools (BBFS), will provide them all the necessary training which is essential for the development of a player which will also include exposure trips through local and domestic tours. IFF along with BBFS will turn these talented kids into quality footballers who can represent India at the international level.
Bhaichung has started a crowdfunding campaign to support this cause at Ketto. You can also help the Indian footballing legend raise funds for IFF by heading here.
Here is a short interview with Bhaichung and his team that explains the story of IFF and why it needs support.
Q. What is the key target for IFF in the next 5 years?
Ans: As part of IFFs mission statement — we wish to work closely with the grassroots and youth talented players — provide them with the right training, resources, opportunities, exposure and a strong career path for these players to develop into professional footballers.
In the last 3–4 years — we have produced 4 India and 15 professional players through the scholarship structure of Indian Football Foundation and Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools (BBFS). Going forward we wish to engage with other agencies (crowd funding agencies, NGOs, corporate CSR, governmental agencies) to raise enough capital to support a minimum of 500 scholars in the next 5 years.
Watch this video to know more about IFF:
Additionally — the IFF project wishes to extend its reach towards excellence in professional football by setting up a residential academy program wherein the best 50–60 players identified through these scouting networks and through our scholarship program shall be kept in a residential facility in a 5 year development program aiming to produce at least 30 India level players through this program with each player from the academy becoming a professional footballer with the leading football clubs in India, Asia and possibly Europe.
As part of the development program — IFF shall also train and mentor more numbers of community leaders and trainers (football coaches) to turn them into professional coaches through our coaches’ education program. The project aims to provide opportunities for employment for these coaches in grassroots sports development through BBFS
Q. This year, IFF has selected 25 boys. Do you aim to increase IFF’s intake in the future? Is there a plan to include girls as well?
Ans: We have already supported 400 scholars in a short span of 5 years. Our current intake is 100+ scholars pan India and we envision to reach more talented kids in the future. The IFF Scholarship program caters to women footballers as well though we definitely intend to reach out to more talented players at a young age. We have already trained 30+ girl scholars. Recently our U17 girls' team participated in the Oorja Cup held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi and secured 3rd position.
As mentioned above — we aim to reach out to various agencies and individual donors to support the program and help us undertake this project for a minimum of 500 scholars in the next 4–5 years.
Q. Have you kept that in mind and do you have any contingency plan for someone who doesn’t make the cut, like helping them prosper in some other field?
Ans: Considering it’s a non-residential scholarship program — we are cognizant of the dropout ratio of some of these players due to long term injury, education, lack of support from parents, lack of opportunities at the I-league and ISL level. We have identified a few avenues for the ones who have not become professional players — some of these avenues include:
a) Admission in elite colleges through sports quota: most of our scholars have played at the national level (and have secured a position) at such competitions which allow these players to use their achievements in Sports to get admission to good undergraduate programs with Delhi University, Amity University and Punjab University (to name a few) — this allows them to continue playing football at the university level and also seek employment after graduation within Sports Industry or otherwise.
b) Hiring scholars as coaches and trainers: some of our young coaches come through our scholarship programs. These players have trained with BBFS for over 3–4 years and understand our playing and coaching philosophy. Some of these players pick up the traits of a good coach and enrol for our coach education program. We have already employed 30+ coaches coming from our scholarship program.
c) Employment as football professionals: some of these coaches who have good communication and management skills also get the opportunity to work with our operations team and take up management roles within BBFS — or seek employment with other similar agencies/organisations working within the sports/football industry.
Q. During IFF’s scouting process, which region have you come across as having the most talented bunch of youngsters in India? The North-East must be up there I guess?
Ans: The foundation and BBFS have a team of 10 football scouts (some of these scouts are also AIFF certified/employed by AIFF for national team selection) which have a network of almost 30–35 local scouts spread across India and these 10 scouts travel to different parts of the country regularly to identify talent.
Some of the most talented players identified by BBFS and IFF have come from the Uttrakhand belt — players such as Deependra Negi (India Captain U16 in 2015), Anirudh Thapa (India Captain U17 in 2016) and Rohit Danu (current U16 India Team captain) have all been identified by BBFS and IFF as part of our scouting drive for the All India Football Federation. Additionally — we have almost 30% representation in BBFS I-league teams (champions of Delhi in U18 I-league) from Uttrakhand.
Apart from Uttrakhand — other scouting hubs include Sikkim, Siliguri (WB), Manipur, Odisha, Punjab and Hisar (Haryana). In Sikkim — Bhaichung has a strong network of coaches and scout who help us identify the best players in the state and we bring them to Delhi as part of training camps and competitions. In Manipur — BBFS has identified a few promising players in our recent scouting drive for I-league competitions in the U13 and U15 age groups. Odisha and Jharkhand have tribal belts close the respective capital cities where we have identified talent through the support of local NGOs and through the scouting program of SAIL (for their residential academy in Bokaro and Burnpur).
Additionally we focus on identifying talent in areas where we have BBFS training centers (Delhi, NCR, Gurgaon, Chandigarh region, Dehradun, Mumbai, Bangalore, etc) identify players from places which are relatively closer to our training centers so that we can provide them with regular training till we have a residential setup in place.
Q. What kind of exposure trip is IFF planning to provide the chosen kids?
Ans: As part of the scholarship program — these scholars become part of our academy teams and get the required exposure to participate in all local and regional competitions (with BBFS). The ones who are selected for the national level competitions such as the I-league U13, U15 or U18 — get the required exposure to be a part of a national camp followed by participation in the zonal and national rounds (if qualified). This is the opportunity which helps these players in further developing into seasoned football players and for the club scouts to identify them and offer professional contracts.
Additionally — we also support some of our scholars in funding their exposure trips to Europe (Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands and Portugal) where they get the opportunity to play against the teams of international stature. Apart from international tours, we also organise domestic tours to Sikkim and other such places which will help these players in their overall development.
Q. Detail us about the crowdfunding campaign and how have been the results so far?
Ans: For this campaign, we had two key objectives: -
1. To raise funds for players from humble backgrounds2. To raise awareness about our Foundation and the work it has been doing for the past 5 years
The campaign has been designed to raise funds for 25 budding footballers and turn them into quality footballers who can bring laurels for their state and country. IFF will provide them with all the football equipment and all the necessary training in association with Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools which is essential for the development of a player. The program will also include exposure trips through local and domestic tours.
The cost of supporting each kid is INR 4000 per month. We aim to raise INR 10 Lakhs for 25 Scholars which will be used for their training and the following: • Coaches’ education and salaries• Scholar local travel• Medical insurance• Kits• Exposure camps• Scouting activities• Tournaments participation
So far we have raised more than INR 1.15 lakhs. We have had support from 46 donors as we speak. The campaign has been shared close to 1000 times on social media. We are confident enough to achieve our target of 10 lakhs and help these kids and Indian football to grow further.
Since it’s formation in 2012, the IFF has supported more than 250 scholars across different age groups. And as Bhaichung says, the numbers will increase with increased mass participation and support.
