Srinagar, May 3: With an aim to groom young talent of the state, the premier financial institution of the state and powerhouse of state football, the Jammu and Kashmir Bank launched Under-17 football academy at Srinagar and Jammu districts of State recently.
 The academy was officially launched by Chairman and Chief Executive of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank, Mushtaq Ahmed at Jammu recently.
 Academy to be controlled by J&K Bank Sports Board, will have 54 young boys selected in the age group of 14-17 year from the both the regions. These boys were picked by a penal of selectors out of a total of 270 young footballers through series of trials.
 Every batch of the selected boys will be trained for a period of three years in the Academy.
 The players will be given proper coaching under the supervision of the skilled and qualified coaches. In addition, the boys will also receive stipend during the coaching sessions.
 It was during 2008 Santosh trophy football tournament that was hosted by J&K that then JK Bank chairman, Dr Haseeb A Drabu, announced that the bank would start its own academy in the state. The announcement proved only mere words till sports board lead by its chairman and JK Bank executive President Taffazul Hussain started to take concrete steps to make this dream a reality that finally was unveiled recently.
  “The project is highly ambitious which will turn out as a milestone in the history of the game,” Taffazul Hussain told Greater Kashmir. “Our motive is to catch the talent young.”
 He said there was an urgent need to set up an academy in the state. “We’ll provide world-class coaching besides the facilities such as food, equipment and boarding,” he said. “Special provision of continuing education will go hand-in-hand with the coaching.”
 He said the sports board would be seeking counselling of the former players and coaches in order to groom the talent in a professional manner.
 “It is just beginning of our very plans that are of broader scale. We want to covert this in to full scale academy which will house all the facilities for the budding footballers,” he said.
 He said former players and banks expert coaches would impart coaching to the trainees. “The presence of the big players would boost their morale and help them learn the skills more efficiently.”
 He said the bank can benefit from the experiences of its own team to make the academy a success. “We have been successful in making one of the formidable teams which not only excelled at domestic level but at national level as well.”
 He said the chairman was keen to make the academy functional. “When we forwarded plan to our chairman and ceo, Mushtaq Ahmad he readily gave us go ahead nod. He is a person of great vision and has given us strict instructions to come out with new plans for all-round development of sports,” he said. “Many former players have suggested us to go for the project in a step-wise sequence rather than going all out.”
 About the structure and training curriculum in academy he said, “We conducted open 4-day selection trials at Tyndale Biscoe school ground in Srinagar and GGM science College ground in Jammu. During trials around 270 boys in the age group of 14-17 participated. Out of those 30 were selected in Kashmir and 24 in Jammu.”
 He said that besides training players will also be given remunerations and other facilities, “Players will be given daily stipend of rupees 1250 each for every practice day while they will also be given refreshment of rupees 20 each for every practice day. Besides that they will be given all the necessary equipment like tracksuits, jerseys, practice shoes, playing shoes by the Bank, “he said.
 The sports board has drafted the training sessions of players in away that it doesn’t clash with their academics.
 “Coaching, training sessions has been fixed in the evening for 90 minutes only with a spirit not to disturb education of the players,” he said.
  “The main aim of the academy is to produce better players by providing technical and tactical knowledge to the boys. We have picked this raw talent from the schools with no formal training. We aim to develop this potential new talent into professionals who can represent us at state, national and international levels in future,” said Tafazal.
 He said since the formation of JK Banks’ first football team in 1985-86 it has contributed lot towards development of the game in the State.
 “We have contributed lot towards development of the game in the State and this academy is to make future strong. Our academy teams will be participating in various local and national level events. Besides that we will be keeping separate teams for local and national level events,” he said.
 “The sports board that includes me, vice-chairman Abdul Hameed Banday, secretary Muhammad Amin Khan, talent search committee have got many plans in store and those will be unveiled shortly,” he added.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 3 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 3 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 4 May 2012 00:00:00 IST