Tata Football Academy (TFA) and the Tata Trusts have joined hands with La Liga giants, Atlético de Madrid (ATM) to enhance and strengthen its existing programme for promoting Indian football.
The main objective of the collaboration is to encourage football as a sport at the youth and grassroots level as well as support the Indian National Football Team. As part of the collaboration, the Tata Football Academy will be renamed as ‘Tata Atlético Football Academia.’
ATM will provide a full-time head coach to TFA who will work on the structure and curriculum that is followed in the Atlético de Madrid Academia in Spain.
Technical experts will also visit TFA to guide and exchange knowledge on the best practices in various areas. Some of these include physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, nutrition, video analysis, player recruitments (scouting), periodic assessments and facility management.
R Pavithra Kumar, director, program design, Tata Trusts said, “The partnership with Atletico de Madrid will enrich grass-root players with best-in-class professional training in all aspects of football.
It will help young players train to international standards, scale them up to become future international players and help establish India on the global map of the sport.”
Chanakya Chaudhary, vice president, corporate services, Tata Steel said, “TFA has been a nursery for Indian football for last 3 decades and has produced some of best Indian footballers. Our partnership with Atlético de Madrid will certainly enhance the academy’s capability to international standards. We intend to be the benchmark for best practices in training, administration and infrastructure for football in the country.”