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India Football Tour, an entity of AddRush sports has joined hands with Sportico Ventures, a sports management company from Kerala. Sportico will be hosting the Kerala leg of India Football Tour slated to be held in August this year.
India Football Tour is a 5-a-side amateur football tournament covering 10 cities namely Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi, Calicut, Chennai, Bangalore and Goa. “We hope that Addrush association with Sportico will make IFT the most aspired amateur football tournament in Kerala and send the best team to Goa for IFT finals and eventually to China in 2017 to represent India in the world fives finals.” Says Sriram Chitlur, Co-Founder, AddRush Sports
Sportico Ventures is a Sports Management company based out of Cochin, Kerala which focuses on identifying young sports talents and their potential and prepare them to become professionals in their stream.
"Amateur football is a growing community in India and Kerala is one of the hotbeds of football in the country is relatively new to the concept. With F5WC, Sportico aims to popularise the concept of amateur football in the state and ensure there is enough football for everyone", says Francis Noel Ben, Director, Sportico Ventures
Sportico conducts grassroots programmes, workshops, camps and specialized training programmes for sports enthusiasts and offer them a platform to recognize their talent and also help them nurture into sportsmen of great quality. They also conduct tournaments, leagues and dietary workshops to boost the players’ confidence and abilities.
They believe in taking India from a land of hidden talents to a land of winners.
In Kerala, Football is not just a sport, but a major part of the culture. Looking back at the legacy, Kerala has had a few legendary names as part of the football culture. From I M Vijayan and Jo Paul Ancheri to a few budding talents who had proved themselves in the ISL - Mohd Rafi, C S Sabeeth, Sushanth Mathew and Duleep Menon - Kerala has proved that the fire is still burning.
“India has underperformed at the F5WC, never getting out of the group stages. This was down to a lack of reach in the past few years with teams coming from small catchment areas. With our partnership with AddRush, who are staging the biggest 5 a side qualifier ever, we expect that the winning team for 2017 will be exceptional given the number of teams they will have to overcome to become India’s representatives at the F5WC World Finals.
“With our global ambassadors, Paul Scholes & Michel Salgado, in attendance at the 2017 World Finals, this will be the perfect stage to showcase the footballing talent yet to be discovered in India.” Says Jeraz, Lead Manager at F5WC.
In Kerala, the crowd support for football is tremendous as well - the attendance record of various ISL matches in Kerala speaks for itself. With various football academies and quality training, Kerala has a good potential for a strong line of players in terms of developing the Football background in India.
