Odisha students to get 43,000 footballs as U-17 Women’s World Cup begins
A FIFA official said soccer is a powerful platform to change society and the ‘Football for All’ scheme will make the game truly global
Ahead of the inaugural ceremony of the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga stadium on Monday, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday launched a ‘Football for All’ programme in which 43,000 footballs will be distributed among children in about 2,000 schools of the state.
Supposed to be the first such programme of FIFA in India that aims at promoting football among school children, ‘Football for All’ is a FIFA vision to make football truly global, said an official.
Patnaik who laumched the programme said the partnerships and initiatives will help football development in the country. “We are quite focused on football development, especially women’s football. As a legacy of the World Cup, we will have good infrastructure and coaching programmes,” he said as sports minister Tusharkanti Behera presented footballs to students of Unit-9 girls High School and Capital High School Bhubaneswar.
Patnaik said it was a proud moment for Odisha to be among the host venues for the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup. “The World Cup will give a major boost towards development of football in the state,” he said.
“Football is a powerful platform to change society. ‘Football for All’ is a FIFA vision to make football truly global. The programme will provide life skill support to children,” said director of ‘Football For Schools’, FIFA, Fatimata Sow Sidbe.
The inaugural ceremony which would be held at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Monday evening would see India and USA fight it out after a colourful cultural extravaganza. Apart from India and USA, Morocco and Brazil would also fight it out on Monday night.
The stadium will host five Group A matches, in which four countries – India, the US, Morocco and Brazil – will be facing each other, and one Group B match between Nigeria and Chile.
Having qualified automatically as hosts, India would be playing in their first ever U-17 World Cup. It would be the first time that a women’s team has represented the nation at the finals of a FIFA tournament.
Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar, JLN Stadium in Margao and DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai will be hosting all the group matches, while the knockout fixtures will be played at Goa and Navi Mumbai, with the latter also staging the final. FIFA+ will broadcast all U-17 Women’s World Cup games in selected territories.
Meanwhile, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday said the “Football for Schools” programme run by FIFA will be taken to over 700 districts in the country. The Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti will be the nodal agency for implementing it. Pradhan made the announcement at a meeting with FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura, ahead of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup.
(With PTI inputs)
