Hitesh Joshi Speaking about India Khelo Football Initiative

India Khelo Football and It's Core Members

India Khelo Football is a people’s initiative, hence there are multiple minds from multiple professional backgrounds behind this. Everyone came together with a common passion towards Indian Football. To name a few volunteers, we have Nirja Shekhawat who is an Engineer by education & Event Manager by profession, Vani Mahajan – A post graduate from Australia, Paras Mehndiratta – A post graduate in Sports Management from UK, Hitesh Joshi (Myself) – Ex Football player, club owner & Academy mentor with experience in Grassroots Skill development programs in Maharashtra Govt promoted company & Partha Ghosh – A football player with expertise in digital marketing. I have stated few, there is a long list of people who contribute significantly towards this initiative.

Main objective 

Main objective of this initiative is to make “Football a viable career option for Indian Kids”. This can be achieved by integrating grassroots football with professional football in a transparent manner.

How this initiative is going to help our young generation?

This initiative will create a very structured pathway for kids who wish to take up football as a profession. Hence this initiative will help young generation with a platform which is open for anyone & everyone which will connect them with global opportunities.

We are going to 16 cities across India and conducting Trials. We have already covered 9 cities (Chandigarh, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Leh, Kargil, Ahmedabad, Jaipur & Imphal). We will cover 7 more cities by November end.

Post that Zonal & National Finals will be conducted. Top 7 kids from national Finals will be taken to Europe for a month completely “Free of Cost” for Trials.

Future plans of India Khelo Football 

Our Future plans is to cover 32 cities every year and take 2 squads per year to Europe for Trails.

We are also in talks with several academies to create a National network of academies imparting same level of player development training.

How much hard it was to convince the common people about the initiative?

For us it is not hard at all. This is something which Indian youth needs and we never had to face this problem. What we have to convince people is that they can trust us on deliverables promised by us. Many times people feel this is too good to be true; however as we are travelling across India (amidst pandemic) and conducting trials as promised people have started to believe k “Yeh log kar lenge jo bol rahe hai”.

The secret of motivation

Major driving force behind this team is common passion towards Indian Football. As I told you earlier this is a people led movement and everyone came together to make this happen. When foundation of an organization is “For people & by people”, I guess motivation is like a air which people breathe in subconsciously every second that they work for it.

Most heart touching feedback 

We have seen so many such moments that I will be hard to pinpoint one specifically. I can narrate few like, we had Afghanistani refugee team participate in our Delhi Trials. We had two girls who turned up in our Kanpur Trials and played against boys. We had one mother who travelled overnight from a village in Himachal to our event in Chandigarh with his son. A father from UP calls & thanks us every single day for the opportunity we gave to his kid by charging only Rs.100.

Seeing them fight against all odds with this hope that they will go to Europe and get selected over there is what touches our heart every day. That hope has been lit by us and we will do everything in our power to turn their dream into reality.

Website - https://indiakhelofootball.com/