A first step forward for over 80,000 talented student athletes, a stage set for the millions of other young aspiring sportspersons of the country
Sports in India has gained a new definition recently with many different sports leagues catching the attention, yet India still punches well below average when it comes to Olympics and other important international sports events. Have we ever wondered why? Is it the lack of facilities? Is it the lack of talent? Is it the lack of coaches? Is it the lack of a professional sporting experience from a young age? Is it the non-seriousness at school levels towards sports? There is no one real answer to this but perhaps, it is a mix of all these factors.
Even though there is a growing awareness of including sports education as a compulsory subject in Indian schools, there lie some endemic obstacles which are preventing its growth trajectory.
Current Scenario of School Sports: In India, sports are not considered as profession, and hence investment by schools as well as by parents for excellence in sports is limited. Though today's education system has made sports education a compulsory subject, in practice it is yet to get the seriousness and importance.
There is a dearth of qualified coaches- Coach training programmes are not encouraged in India and as a result schools lack trained coaches. There are not enough infrastructure or sports facilities in the school premises.
Sports should be stopped to be looked upon as a gateway to admissions or better grades or attendance fulfillment due to missed classes. Passion towards sports has to be instilled since the early days of players.
Sports as a part of early life: The schools in India should make sports mandatory for students in order to promote sports. Not only do sports instil team effort and learning through the game, it's also the best way to keep a young mind engaged and healthy and attain healthy body weight. Sports inculcate qualities like leadership, discipline, sharing, team work, honesty, team spirit, tolerance and many more among the students. Providing the best facilities to players at school level will encourage participation and interest in sports.
Where Indian Students Stand: India is a land of talent where one sees many budding sport stars in the narrow gullies of small towns. However a lot of these young talents hang up their sporting shoes at an early age because they don't get a chance to come to the forefront or they lack the experience of playing professional sports. These talents need to be identified, they need to be given a platform to showcase their sporting prowess, they need to be enhanced and guided by showing the way out to excel in their sporting skills.
Need of the Hour: Whatever it takes, schools in India need to make an extra effort to promote sports at the grass roots. Competitions and tournaments at the grass roots should be conducted often to help find star talents and then work on their strengths, turning them into professional players.
By bringing about a revolution at the grass- roots level, the perception towards sports of an entire nation is on the threshold of change. Commercializing inter- school sports in India will bring to the young Indian players the infrastructure, the facilities and the sheer respect they have deserved for a very long time now. An explosion of opportunities in terms of further training and scholarship programs will emerge to nurture the prowess of children who are committed towards their sport
Sports for All, The Gamechanger: As the first step towards creating an integrated system which provides for an annual Olympic style professional championship for inter-school sports and with an objective to provide sporting infrastructure and facilities that would give the nation's young athletes the taste of the big leagues as observed by the world on TV, Sports For All has opened up a stage for the dreams of all our budding athletes that will revolutionize grassroots sports. SFA's flagship tournament conducted across 2 cities (Mumbai & Hyderabad) and 27 different sports has hosted over 80,000 students from 900+ schools, instantly making it the biggest ever inter-school sporting event to be held in India.
The endeavour is directed towards systematically unifying and identifying the fragments of raw talent at grass root level sports that go unappreciated and undeveloped. The vision is to provide a professional grass root sporting system that will help school going children showcase their talent, identify their potential, and seep in the right knowledge and guidance which in all will provide opportunities to take their sporting skills to the next level. It has also initiated the most prestigious school sports ranking system, which will tell every city which is the BEST SCHOOL for sports in their city
An integral part of SFA's system is also their website www.sfanow.in. This unique digital sports platform which aims to digitize grass roots sports in India keeps a tab on all the data and activities of the event and maintains an up to date record of every participant — each student is given a unique SFA ID so that they can keep a tab on their performance. The website's video section captures winning moments of players besides every match, detailed data analytics. From real-time live scoring to having a profile, match statistics & performance review of each school and its students participating, SFA has covered it all.
Sports For All firmly believes that only by facilitating, empowering and nurturing the young players of India at the student level, will India be able to create champions who will go on to represent the country at highest international tournaments in the years to come. By its third year itself, SFA has ignited 80,000 young athletes in Mumbai and Hyderabad to dream of competing not just for them, but for the Nation. With an exposure to such a professional sporting system at such a tender age, there is very little that can hold back this generation of India's finest athletes from taking over the world of sports.
Ab Jeetega India!