FIFA U-17 India: The Future of Football - Expansions Endorsed

The FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 may see some of the most excellent and gifted juvenile players from around the globe collectively in a preview of the potential and future of the men’s sport, but the organizers in India want to ensure that girls and women too take a part both mentally and physically in the tournament’s legacy. The name given to this dream project is “Mission XI Million”, which envisages making sure that all youngsters, both girls and boys, invariably play a role in developing the future of football in India, a nation which has been obsessed with the fever of cricket for decades. The FIFA U-17 in India happens to be an endorsement and approval for football, which till now has found itself limited to small playgrounds, lacking for apt facilities and amenities, and with almost no commercial support. The Government of India is firm in its resolve, to support the cause of football, and garner our youth to grow themselves into proper players, and individuals, and in this process, decent citizens. This project revolves around the noble idea of contacting Schools aiming to get 11 million children enjoy the game of football, with the sole intention and revelation of making football an alternating sport preference in India.

In my role as a State Coordinator of the IAAF Kid’s Athletics Program, which too draws children from Schools, I envision this Mission as one analogous initiative to make sport practices in India more vibrant. Having studied and practiced the Kid’s Athletics, I draw a report on the positives of the Mission XI Million, and in my role as a Sociologist, to outline the primary obstructions for sociological growth through the sport of football in particular, as a movement, to achieve further recognition as a valuable instrument for development.