By Joseph Solomon,
AIFF Media Team

NEW DELHI: The ongoing Advanced Grassroots Leaders Course being conducted by AIFF aims to tutor the 25 participants in identifying talent from their respective States, Scott O’Donell, Technical Director, AIFF informed on Thursday (June 29).

Speaking exclusively to www.the-aiff.com, AIFF’s Technical Director Scott O’Donell said: “We have spent the last three years to raise the profile of the Grassroots and we are at a stage to now identifying talented Players in the Programme and challenge them further.”

The three-day informative Course is being attended by the Technical Officers and Grassroots Development Officers from all over the Country.

Former India U-16 National Coach Gautam Ghosh, presently the Technical Officer of Indian Football Association, West Bengal agreed with O’Donell.

“We have set up six Grassroots Centres. Talent identification at the Grassroots level is necessary for the development of Football in India as a whole,” he maintained.

“We have already Grassroots Centres in West Bengal and the aim now is to harness the talented Players through various permutations and combinations. The Course is helping us to understand how to extend the outreach of Grassroots Football in the State while identifying talents,” Ghosh stated.

“Talent identification is key in Grassroots Football as it helps in the growth of the talented Players,” said Mumbai’s Dinesh Nair. “In Mumbai we have implemented talent identification through matches and we have designed format according to age groups and that has immensely boosted our results in terms of talent identification.”

“Grassroots Football should be about engaging the masses and through talent identification the kids should know that there is a pathway to become elite,” he informed.

Richard Hood, AIFF’s Head of Youth Development, also the Instructor of the Course also reflected on the importance of the Workshop.

“The Workshop has been designed to deliver a better understanding of how Players are developed the World over. We are not in a position to copy any one particular model for our success and an Indian development plans needs to emerge with the focus on the youngest Players we have,” he pronounced.

“I have always believed that to catch up with the best in Asia we need to start where they start.”