Four talented upcoming footballers – two girls & two boys from Mumbai, who were the successful selected candidates, will be heading to London based football club Queens Park Rangers to undergo training at the QPR Academy for a fortnight. The four youngsters were picked based on their overall football skills at a special talent hunt camp held during the 10th edition of the QPR South Mumbai Junior Soccer Challenger - A Milind Deora initiative, which was conducted in December 2018.
The selected players are, Yohaanne Poonawala (Bombay International School), Sagar Rathod (Colaba Municipal Upper Primary English), Nishka Prakash (Edubridge International) and Aditi Pandire (Sai Baba Path Mumbai Public School). Deora presented the four players with the QPR team jerseys and the necessary documents for their departure to London which is scheduled for October 2.
The event was conceived and managed by Saran Sports.
“I am proud of how far we have come in the past decade. In the last 10 years, I have seen boys growing up to become men. Many have thanked me for keeping the tournament alive so that it may empower thousands more. I am extremely grateful to everyone who has been a part of it, especially QPR and our valued sponsors such as Aditya Birla Group, Axis Bank, Surf and Credit Suisse,” Deora said at the function.
The championship attracted as many as 6,600 children from 165 schools representing over 800 teams. Over 1,000 matches were played. Besides 30 per cent of the participants were girls and as many as 75 per cent of the participants were from municipal and government-aided schools.
Sixty children were shortlisted for a special talent hunt camp conducted by professional coaches after which four talented youngsters.
This opportunity is going to be a lifetime experience for the kids to train at the famed QPR Academy which produced English striker Raheem Sterling who shifted as a youngster to Liverpool in 2010 and is currently playing for Manchester City.