Published Fri, Apr 30 10 05:22 PM
Mumbai, Apr 30 (PTI) In a major blow to football in the metropolis, Mahindra United Football Club will be disbanded at the end of current I-League season with focus of the parent company shifting towards developing talent at school level. "We have decided to get out of competitive soccer and get into grassroots soccer at schools level. This means at the end of the I-League we would not be taking part in any competitive soccer but training school kids to make them better prospects in soccer," said the club''s Chairman Alan Durante today. Ruzbeh Irani, Executive VP Corporate Strategy, M&M Ltd, said the decision to get out of competitive football after so many years, first as Mahindra and Mahindra Sports Club and then from 1991 as Mahindra United FC, was in line with the Group''s "philosophy and shift in focus from taking part in professional sport to developing it". "We feel we can make a much bigger difference to sport in India at the schools level in soccer and grassroots level in basketball (after associating with National Basketball Association of USA in Mahindra NBA Challenge), than by running one professional team," he added. Durante said that contracts of 98 per cent of the current lot of professional footballers would be over by the end of May or June 10.
Source: Web Search
0 comments:
Post a Comment