All India Football Federation’s Development Manager (Grassroots) Suvrat Thatte and Assistant Development Manager (Grassroots) Ms. Anju Turambekar attended the UEFA Study Group Scheme (SGS) on Grassroots Football at St. George’s Park, the training facility of the Football Association in England.

The UEFA Study Group Scheme is a knowledge exchange Programme of UEFA for European Countries on topics such as Grassroots Football, Coach Education, Women’s Football, etc. This particular SGS focussed on Grassroots Football and covered various aspects of GR Football sharing best practices amongst the representatives from the participating Nations.

This is the first time that representatives from select Asian Countries have been invited to attend such an initiative, which is courtesy of an AFC-UEFA agreement on cooperation.

Besides India, the contingent of the Asian Football Confederation was also attended by representatives from Japan, China, Jordan and Vietnam. The contingent was selected by the AFC on the basis of developmental progress done in Grassroots Football in their respective Countries over the last year. In addition, representatives of three European Countries – England, Denmark and Finland were also present.

Each representative Country made a presentation on the various Grassroots activities in their respective Countries. England led the way with detailed inputs on the various activities which are conducted in Grassroots Football.

Thatte thanked the AFC and the UEFA for “acknowledging our Developmental Programme”.

“We are thankful to the AFC and UEFA for acknowledging our Programme in Grassroots Football and selecting AIFF to attend such a Course. We hope that the partnership between the AFC and UEFA will continue to help Member Associations within Asia with such opportunities,” he told AIFF Media.

“The exercise was an excellent opportunity for us to learn the best practices from across top Footballing Nations and though we have achieved good success in a short time in India, there is still a lot to learn from the best practices,” he added.

(Report & Picture courtesy AIFF Media)