AIFF Media Team

NEW DELHI: The closing ceremony for ePathshala in Football (Grassroots and Intermediate), an athlete coaching and education programme by the Sports Authority of India in association with the All India Football Federation, was held on Wednesday, March 24, 2021 via video conferencing.

The ePathshala was a three-month course which was conducted from August 15, 2020 to November 15, 2020 for children below the age of 18.

The course was conducted in order to promote football culture in the country and to provide training to players in various football skills during the ongoing pandemic.

The ePathshala was not only about football training, but it was also about the participants keeping themselves fit during a pandemic situation. In order to train grassroots and intermediate level football players a web portal was developed, on which training was conducted in compliance with the SOPs prescribed for the prevention of the Covid-19 virus.

The efforts of SAI and AIFF resulted in 15,589 players getting registered for the ePathshala. The ePathshala Football consisted of three main categories – My Football Culture (Under-18 years), My Skills (Under-12 years), and My Trainings (Under-18 years). Every category had a number of sub-categories or competitions.

After the successful organisation of the ePathshala, an evaluation committee under the guidance of Mr. Isac Doru, Technical Director, AIFF, identified the top achievers from different age groups in various competitions offered in the ePathshala Football web portal. Over 290 top achievers were identified and they were rewarded with merchandise and certificates by SAI and AIFF.

Present in the ePathshala closing ceremony were Mr Praful Patel, President, Shri PS Sreedharan Pillai, Honble. Governor of Mizoram, AIFF, Mr Kushal Das, General Secretary, AIFF, Dr. G Kishore, Principal and RD, SAI LNCPE, Thiruvananthapuram, Dr. Pradip Dutta, Associate Professor and FIFA Instructor, SAI Trivandrum, Mr Isac Doru, Technical Director, AIFF, Mr Savio Medeira, Head of Coach Education, AIFF, among others.