Shrachi Sports eyes big; Makes a tie-up with renowned German club for the future of Bengal football
Sudeep Pakrashi: At a time when Indian football’s top league, the Indian Super League (ISL) is struggling to get kicked off due to a lack of a proper investor, Shrachi Sports has set an instance through its endeavour to recreate a supple-line of quality footballers from Bengal. Along with that the Bengal Super League (BSL), introduced by Shrachi Sports, is being able to bring investment also in the field of football. It can be assumed that eight district franchise teams are investing nearly Rs 2 crore each to make it nearly Rs 20 crores in the newly-built football eco-system in Bengal. And introducing the franchise-based Bengal Super League (BSL) from 14th December with eight district franchise teams is not their only motive. Looking forward to the future prospect of Bengal football, they are already eying ‘big’. Shrachi Sports is going to make a tie-up with a renowned German club, FC Ingolstadt. The club, although participates in the third tier of the Bundeshliga currently, has the biggest youth development program in Germany. The company’s chairman, Tamal Ghosal when asked about the tie-up revealed, “The key reason behind the association with FC Ingolstadt is their amazing youth development program. The club is owned by renowned car company, Audi and they have built up an ultra-modern, remarkable infrastructure. They have nearly 10 thousand students of different age-groups. He continued, “Significantly, most of their academy boys are promoted to senior squad who play in the Bundesliga. Statistics show that even the clubs like Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund do not promote their academy boys in the senior squads in such extent compared to FC Ingolstadt. Our emphasis will now be on educating the coaches we have here, workshops with the referees who are in our panel, and ultimately, an initiative will surely be taken to send highly-potential footballers to the FC Ingolstadt academy, selected through the trials.” But this is not the end. Shrachi Sports, which is expected to announce its tie-up officially on 26th November, has already been in the process of introducing a few residential academies across Bengal, and their plans are likely to be materialized from Burdwan, as they already have a huge infrastructural set-up in the district. Shrachi Sports already has a residential football school in Delhi. The company has already attached a Delhi-based club, Juba Sangha, and as the Delhi-based club will be participating in the AIFF’s Under-18 Youth League this year, most of the footballers from Shrachi Sports’ football academy will be getting due exposure through their participation in the League. After the end of the AIFF Under-18 Youth League, East Bengal’s former Ghanaian defender Suley Musah, who is already working as one of Shrachi Sports’ mentors and scouts, might join the company’s Delhi-based academy as chief coach. Ghosal mentioned, “We have observed Musah is highly proficient in guiding the youngsters.” Looking forward to the first BSL, Shrachi Sports has conducted a selection trial in Kolkata. Ghosal explained, “We received registration of around 800 players. Around 150 attended the selection trial. Three former greats, Bhaskar Ganguly, Alvito D’Cunha and Suley Musah were scouts and 20 potential footballers were finally shortlisted. Out of 20, one is a German boy.” Now, the company will conduct another selection trial in North Bengal. The company’s aim is to scout around 45 potential footballers from these two selection trials and distribute them among the eight district franchise teams for the BSL. “Our scouting program began in the CFL Premier Division. We appointed scouts for each of the 25 participating teams in the CFL Premier Division, and footballers have already been shortlisted. The scouting program will be on during the BSL, and it will help us when FC Ingolstadt coaches will come and conduct a series of selection trials to spot the boys for their academy. Our short-listed candidates can be there in the selection trials,” divulged Ghosal.
Shrachi Sports announces legendary Lothar Matthaus as the brand ambassador of Bengal Super League
Shrachi Sports announced legendary German World-Cup-winning footballer Lothar Matthaus as ‘the brand ambassador’ of the introductory Bengal Super League (BSL) football championship starting from 7th December across the state. BSL, which will be organized by Shrachi Sports and IFA jointly, will feature eight franchise teams from eight districts. The announcement was made on Friday in a media conference at a city hotel. It was also announced that Matthaus is coming to Kolkata next month. Ayan Bandopadhyay, CEO of Shrachi Sports, said in the media conference, “The key purpose of starting BSL is to create the supply-line of Bengali footballers for the Indian team in the future. In recent years, Bengali footballers have been hardly seen in the national teams of most of the age-group teams as well as the senior national team. Even Bengali footballers are rarely observed in the country’s top-flight championship, ISL. But there is no dearth of potential Bengali footballers and most of them can be noticed across the districts. So, BSL, following the IPL format will help spot quality Bengali footballers for the national teams in the future. BSL will also inspire the ISL teams, especially East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, to think about recruiting potential Bengali footballers in the future.” The eight franchise teams from districts like Siliguri, Maldah, Birbhum, North and South 24 Parganas, and Howrah, will be participating in the BSL. In a bid to emphasize on participation of Bengali footballers, rules have been made that each team will be able to field only two foreigners and two national-level out-stationed footballers in a match. They have to put seven Bengali footballers, including under-19 footballers, on the ground. The agreement between Shrachi Sports and IFA has been made on a 10-year basis to run BSL. Significantly, former India internationals from Bengal will also be working with eight franchise teams as mentors during the League.
