Kids who want to become top football players of Sri Lanka will have an opportunity to be groomed and become top national players in the future.
With this in mind a Football Institute was inaugurated with former top national player and coach Rumy Pakeeraly as the head that will come under the purview of Football Sri Lanka (FSL). The inauguration took place at the FSL headquarters on Friday (13) that will be welcomed by many enthusiastic kids and parents.
According to the president of FSL Jaswar Umar it is after a long lapse that such an academy is opened that will also help bring about future national heroes.
“Sri Lanka has ample talented soccer players that need to be groomed and educated about how to grow up in the sport and take the correct nutrition to become top class players,” said Jaswar.
“Even after a year without active football there are plenty of talented kids who are enthusiastic to come into the game. We have to invest in our future kids who are ambitious to become top players in this world famous sport,” added Jaswar.
These youths who are found to be of quality in the game will also be sent to learn more about the game at the Aspire Academy which is in Qatar in the future.
“We won in a top tournament in 1995 when we beat India in the final of the South Asia Championship. Out next target is to win another such championship in 2025 and excel in the World Cup qualifiers to be held in 2027,” said Jaswar.
Rumy Pakeeraly will be the head coach of the Institute and have highly qualified coaches to assist him at the Baddegana ground which is the venue of the training centre.
Already about 40 kids, both boys and girls have registered to attend training.
They will be trained in various aspects of building up like fitness, skills, strength training and nutrition. They will be divided into their age groups and later conduct junior tournaments to gauge their level of progress.
Currently, most of these children are from International Schools.
“After the president conducted tournaments island-wide and took the game to ‘Gamate’ more kids are keen to take up to the game. So why not build something in Sri Lanka to develop the game,” noted Pakeeraly.
