National football academy in Burdwan

It’s known that newly appointed AIFF president Praful Patel is leaving no stone unturned for the betterment of the Indian football. His initiatives to set up the National Football Academy may have run into rough water after Goa and Haryana governments turned down the offer to provide land. But West Bengal government came to rescue and has offered land for the academy in Burdwan, a place near Kolkata.

“Academy plan was in limbo, but West Bengal government saved us the blushes by offering land through Burdwan District Sports Association (BDSA) and we have plan to set up the academy there,” a top AIFF official revealed it to DNA.

The academy, a first of it kind, will have three partners — AIFF, BDSF and Bayern Munich — working in tandem.

“Actually BDSA was continuing with their training programmes in collaboration with Bayern Munich and now they want AIFF as their partner for the project… The arrangement is such that BDSF will provide the ground in the AIFF-partnered project while Bayern Munich will chip in with technical expertise whenever required,” the official said.

To supervise the work, AIFF has formed a four-member core panel in the last executive committee meeting. The panel comprises national coach Bob Houghton, and officials Larsing M Sawyn, Subrata Dutta and Hardev Jadeja. “These four individuals have been entrusted with the job of making it a state-of-the-art academy within a few months’ time,” the official added.

Meanwhile, an exclusive training centre with a modern gymnasium and swimming pool has been offered by the Kalyani Municipality, located on the outskirts of Kolkata, for the Indian football team. The above-mentioned panel will oversee the work of the training centre too. This is likely to be the official training centre for Bob Houghton and his boys in the future.