He is the main striker in the current Indian team and is tipped to be the successor to Baichung Bhutia. But apart from his exploits on the field, Sunil Chhetri is now set to score for Indian football off the pitch as well.
The ace striker is all set to conduct a coaching camp for budding footballers in the country. The camp, which will be held from June 16-23, will involve 100 children from several schools across the national capital region. It will have 40 boys from the u-14 age group, another 14 from the u-16 age group and around 20 girls in the u-18 category.
But what prompted him to venture into coaching. Surely training and matches with his club Churchill Brothers and the national team must be taking up all the time of India’s premier centre forwardIJ “A few of my friends who work in the corporate sector are eager to start a football academy. They are big football fans and is really concerned at the lack of world class football academies in India.
“These boys came to me regarding an academy. But I advised them that to open an academy right away is not very easy and feasible, and told them to first conduct a camp and get an idea about how to go about things, and then do it,” Chhetri told The Pioneer.
But football camps and clinics are a dime a dozen these days, especially with seemingly every English Premier league club worth its salt eager to wade into the lucrative Indian market. But critics have cast doubts on their effectiveness since such short duration camps can hardly be expected to provide too much benefit.
But Chhetri insists that his coaching camp is a lot different from the others and has a detailed plan to ensure that the youngsters retain what they learn over the seven days of the course.
“It is a good thing that European clubs are showing such a keen interest in India. Indian kids are getting an opportunity to train with some of the best clubs and best youth coaches in the world. That is surely a good thing,” he said. “But my coaching camp will offer something extra.”
He also said that the dates for I-league matches should not be changed. “If the match date scheduled is say Jan 10, then the match should be held on that date and should not be changed without any rhyme or reason,” he added.
However, Chhetri is more interested in the future generation of footballers rather than the workings of the AIFF and cannot wait for the camp to start. “The kids are not going to learn a lot over these seven days of training. But they will take away with them is a way of training that will continue with them for the rest of their lives and will also help them quite a lot when dealing with other stuff in life other than football,” he signed off.