Next Messi from Madras ?

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How about grooming an Indian or a Chennai footballer into a Messi from Madras to bring laurels to India? Well that’s the vision that has inspired Girish Mathrabootham, Chennai based IT tycoon and Founder of Freshworks to launch FC Madras, a new age football academy built to FIFA standards on a sprawling 23 acre area at Mamallapuram.

Touted to be India’s first smart football academy bringing together global football academy practices and technological advancements in sports technology, the 100 crore academy has facilities to train and nurture 130 handpicked talented footballers in the 12 to 15 age group into champions. The residential programme offers full scholarship and the athletes will also be enrolled for National Institute of Open Schooling curriculum to take care of their studies.

Girish says it all started when he took his son to play football at Chennai’s Adyar where around 60 kids played on a ground that had no grass. It was then he decided to replicate the sports infrastructure he saw in the US, to help young football talents in India. Claiming only 2% of athletes turn professional Girish says “We want to create champions for life, not just champions for sport” so that even the other 98% would be successful in life. He believes champions can be engineered with right amount of investment, nutrition and infrastructure. Explaining the strategy, Girish added “The programme is designed to work on the athlete focusing on their nutrition, fitness, speed, agility and skills. So many countries have done this”.

Well known data coach Dhananjai who’s now with IPL team Mumbai Indians is the Director of sports and Governance at FC Madras. Many veteran footballers too are expected to join the academy which has state of the art data analytics, video analysis, sports science and optimal performance based nutrition for athletes.

Aspirants across India, the academy says can connect with them on their social media pages for details on selection.

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