BIG VENUE: The Bharati Vidyapeeth ground will be the venue for the football development centre, to be run by Liverpool PUNE: In arguably the biggest development in the history of Pune football, Premiership giant Liverpool announced on Tuesday that the club would have a football development centre in the city very soon.
Although there is no fix date for the opening of the development centre, a joint venture by city’s Abhijit Kadam Memorial Foundation (AKMF), Liverpool, and British company Kickworldwide, one can expect to see a lot of developments in next month, according to Steve Bellis, director, Kickworldwide.
Liverpool commercial director Ian Ayre, who was in the city since Monday, made the announcement in presence of Vishwajit Kadam, managing trustee, AKMF, and the brain behind the centre.
“We had arrived here to discuss the possibility of a football development centre in Pune. Now one can say that it’s definitely going to happen. When, and how, we will have to see.
“We are still in the discussion process and we need to finalise a lot of key points about the centre,” Ayre said on Tuesday before leaving the city.
“We have seen the facilities at the Bharati Vidyapeeth ground. It’s just the kind of ground we wanted to start a development centre at,” Ayre added.
Talking about the Kickworldwide’s part in it, Bellis said, “We have been approached by a number of people from India in the past who made false promises. So one thing we look at is the attitude, and we are very impressed with the vision of Vishwajit Kadam. We know he is looking at a long-term project, which will help in developing good footballers in India. And that’s something we all want to see,” Bellis explained.
Kickworldwide runs the famous football reality show Soccer Prince in UK. “We tried this show in China and it was a hit. We had about 20,000 kids in China, and the number could have been far bigger, if we had advertised it in a bigger way. But we didn’t, because we didn’t want the number to go to a uncontrollable level.
“I can’t tell you right now when this reality show will begin in India, but it will happen this year for sure,” Bellis said.
“The basic idea is to create awareness about the game, and the huge number of job opportunities it opens and then to channelise that awareness towards the development centre,” Bellis explained.
Explaining about the awareness, he said, “I have seen the India U-16 players who played in UK recently. They were unbelievable. There is a lot of talent in India. What you need now is some role models. You need the Sachin Tendulkar’s of football here. And that’s what our aim is.”
The basic involvement of Liverpool will be to provide the technical expertise. “Since we are such a big club in Europe, we have our experts at all different levels. We have good coaches, pitch experts, commercial specialists.
“We are still discussing about the various levels at which we can be involved, apart from coaching,” Ayre said.
Even though not much has been finalized about the development centre, Vishwajit Kadam informed that they are looking at the players in the age group between 14 and 18. “We will have a fix number of kids who will train with us at a time. We haven’t yet figured out about the volume of it, but at least initially we are looking at kids from Pune, and other parts of Maharashtra,” he explained.
“The target is to find the talent from smaller cities. We don’t want to pick up someone who is already playing for a big club like Mahindra United,” Bellis summed up.
Although there is no fix date for the opening of the development centre, a joint venture by city’s Abhijit Kadam Memorial Foundation (AKMF), Liverpool, and British company Kickworldwide, one can expect to see a lot of developments in next month, according to Steve Bellis, director, Kickworldwide.
“We had arrived here to discuss the possibility of a football development centre in Pune. Now one can say that it’s definitely going to happen. When, and how, we will have to see.
“We are still in the discussion process and we need to finalise a lot of key points about the centre,” Ayre said on Tuesday before leaving the city.
“We have seen the facilities at the Bharati Vidyapeeth ground. It’s just the kind of ground we wanted to start a development centre at,” Ayre added.
Talking about the Kickworldwide’s part in it, Bellis said, “We have been approached by a number of people from India in the past who made false promises. So one thing we look at is the attitude, and we are very impressed with the vision of Vishwajit Kadam. We know he is looking at a long-term project, which will help in developing good footballers in India. And that’s something we all want to see,” Bellis explained.
Kickworldwide runs the famous football reality show Soccer Prince in UK. “We tried this show in China and it was a hit. We had about 20,000 kids in China, and the number could have been far bigger, if we had advertised it in a bigger way. But we didn’t, because we didn’t want the number to go to a uncontrollable level.
“I can’t tell you right now when this reality show will begin in India, but it will happen this year for sure,” Bellis said.
“The basic idea is to create awareness about the game, and the huge number of job opportunities it opens and then to channelise that awareness towards the development centre,” Bellis explained.
Explaining about the awareness, he said, “I have seen the India U-16 players who played in UK recently. They were unbelievable. There is a lot of talent in India. What you need now is some role models. You need the Sachin Tendulkar’s of football here. And that’s what our aim is.”
The basic involvement of Liverpool will be to provide the technical expertise. “Since we are such a big club in Europe, we have our experts at all different levels. We have good coaches, pitch experts, commercial specialists.
“We are still discussing about the various levels at which we can be involved, apart from coaching,” Ayre said.
Even though not much has been finalized about the development centre, Vishwajit Kadam informed that they are looking at the players in the age group between 14 and 18. “We will have a fix number of kids who will train with us at a time. We haven’t yet figured out about the volume of it, but at least initially we are looking at kids from Pune, and other parts of Maharashtra,” he explained.
“The target is to find the talent from smaller cities. We don’t want to pick up someone who is already playing for a big club like Mahindra United,” Bellis summed up.
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