5 Sikkimese footballers selected for AIFF B’lore Academy

Namchi, November 6, 2013

Five players of Namchi Sports Hostel have been selected in the under-14 category to join the prestigious All India Football Federation (AIFF) Bangalore Academy for their outstanding performance.

The five selected players had performed brilliantly in the U-12 & U- 13 tournaments organised by AIFF at Kalyani Stadium in West Bengal in November last year.

Pratap Tamang of Salghari, South Sikkim, Anil Limboo of Heegoan, West Sikkim, Namgyal Bhutia of Chumbung, West Sikkim, Biswa Kr. Darjee of Gyalshing, West Sikkim, and Avinash Sharma of Gangtok, East Sikkim, left for Bangalore on Nov 4 and will join the academy on Nov 7. The Namchi Sports Hostel team had won the U-12 & U-13 tournaments of the AIFF from Nov 18-24, 2012, in West Bengal.

The junior football team of Namchi Sports Hostel secured 55 points followed by Delhi 50 points and Maharashtra 45 points. The Namchi Sports Hostel represented Sikkim in the event, where budding footballers from 25 states participated. The Sikkimese boys not only won the trophy but also impressed the organizers with their outstanding performance.

The selectors, including the chief coach of Indian football team and technical director AIFF, and the organizers were all praises for the state’s contingent.

The AIFF selectors had selected 15 players from the team for the AIFF Academy, of which eight made it to the final list. Three U-12 players Surag Chettri, Smiel Diyali and Ritik Rai had already joined the AIFF U-12 Goa Academy.

With this, Sikkim has set a record of providing the highest number of players from a state to a national academy. The eight Sikkimese players are among the 52 players whose talents will be nurtured further in the academy.

“Football fans of our state have another reason to cheer ..for the achievement of our boys of Namchi Sport Hostel,” Joint Director (SYS) Kamal Chettri told Sikkim Reporter.

“Our hostel represented Sikkim in that tourney, where players from 25 states had participated. With our best performance, eight boys were selected for the country’s best football academy. We topped the list amongst the other states at the tournament. We are proud of their performance and for the selection of our boys,” said Chettri.

He congratulated the boys and said that the AIFF platform would help them fulfill their dreams of playing in the India team one day. “Everything is possible with hard work and discipline.”

The Namchi Sports Hostel was set up by the state government in 1999 to nurture football talents to realize the chief minister’s vision of “Search for more Bhaichungs”.

The products of this Hostel have already made it big at the national and international levels. Nirmal Chettri, Sanju Pradhan, Nim Dorjee Tamang, Asish Pradhan and Uttam Rai are some of the names that have played at the highest levels and there are many other players who are playing for the best clubs of the country.

Chamling’s “Search for More Bhaichungs” initiative has already started bearing fruits, “and providing opportunities to our young talents from different corners of Sikkim,” Chettri said.

Namchi Sport Hostel coach Suren Chettri, under whom the boys were trained, congratulated the players for their selection and also thanked the Sikkim Football Association for giving the players from the Hostel the opportunity to showcase their talents at national events. He also thanked United Sikkim FC for sponsoring the boys in the Kolkata event “and with such collective effort our team clinched the top spot,” said coach Suren Chettri.

“We have talents in Sikkim and with the support of the state government we reached this level. Sikkim is today a leading destination for searching for budding young talents in football and if our boys will get more facilities at this level, soon Sikkim boys will dominate all the football grounds of our country,” the coach said.

(Courtesy: SikkimFirst.in)