Football Federation Australia to implement grassroots program in India

It is a DFAT initiative. The ISL is a short competition with bells and whistles to create a flashy event and hence has no interest in development. The I-League is the bastion of traditional clubs who have their own academies, though the sheer size of India limits their reach and there are none in Kerela. The AIFF do have development initiatives across the country though again have a severe resource constraint considering the task at hand. They are the ones working with DFAT and the FFA to implement this, possibly as a precursor to the U17 World Cup which is being hosted by India as part of their drive to increase grassroots interest in the sport.

Great initiative FFA, Is the Indian Superleague doing a similar project in it's own country?

This is a good article on the opportunities that can be unlocked in Asia, including increased commercial outcomes: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=TAWEB_MRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/world-game-of-football-draws-australia-into-asian-opportunities/news-story/3d15ef4f119f738708031665d2c5327f&memtype=registered These can not be achieved by simply "staying home"

You are correct, Fuss. The FFA will be a managing contractor for the programme and may even be making a profit from this type of management activity which is being invested back into football in Australia. What people need to realise is that the Australian Government has funds for various social improvement activities across the region and that some forward thinking people have managed to get football included in this pool of funding.

You'll find that the link is more likely through the current Technical Director of India, Scott O'Donell, who is an Australian, as opposed to Rob Baan.

Punter - Whilst I appreciate your long history in the game it is obvious you are missing the point I am trying to make,I am not saying Korea or Thailand or Japan have better TEAMS than we have,I am simply stating what is obvious to me in that they,their home grown players, have far better developed ball skills than do our local lads and thus my attention is drawn to why this is so, As someone else has commented Bluewings have apparently fielded two youthful teams in their two ties versus Victory and if that is true then I rest my case for if they are second tier players then the problem may be greater than I think. Now to your angle. I appreciate that greater physical strength and size and of course tactics can be incorporated into what is termed as "team play" but that is not what I am passing comment on ,my comment is based on the individual skills levels in receiving passing and individual movement with and without the ball and in that area I rated each individual Bluewings equal to or better than some of our top HAL players. That observation and opinion does not necessarily win games but I would have thought an old stager like you would have notivced the same differencs. It's called player assessment as against team assessment. Cheers jb..

Very easy JB, it was an aging golden generation team that had done so much to put football on the map in this country & felt they were owed something & deserved they to be picked for the Socceroos, even though they were on the decline & some not even playing. They had a coach, Holger, who only wanted results & knew these harden professionals could get the results, well they did until they did until they came up against the harder teams which showed up the team for what they were. What impresses me with the current Socceroos, it's not the results, it's the way we play more so then the results, even against lesser lights our football skills & movement is superior.

JB, I noticed you did not comment on how MV were the better team (football wise) Bluewing in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago, or that SFC, were equal to & even better then Pohang Steelers on Tuesday night. What about Socceroos performance against Korea, especially in the round robin game, where we outplayed a strong Korean team (playing football, ball skills & movement) that even the golden generation never did against the top Asian teams in the last 10 years. We pick & choose to suit our agenda. I have followed football in this country for a long time & yes there is no Viduka or Kewell around, but the level of play by the Aussies (A-League and O/S) are so much higher then it's ever been before.

Waz- I bow to your superior knowledge of the figures you cite but that ,or those, don't change my view on how well we are educating,not introducing, but educating our kids in the finer points of football On or off,for the last fifteen years I have had an interest in grassroots football and have witnessed and read many criticisms as to how the much lauded curriculum is not getting through to grassroots football in this country. Over those same years I have had occasion to watch many Asian teams playing and it never fails to impress me as to how their basic skills far exceed the levels we would hope to be achieving. Now if that physical eveidence does not back up what you,among many others ,have been speaking about on this site then I don't know what it will take. My take on it is closely allied to the fact that the FFA have been totally responsible for the financing and implementation of a plan over the last nine years ,a plan that does not yet appear to be working and yet here we are reading that they are going to run (don't really know what that means) a program for the Indian Football head body,a body that just happens to employ Rob Bann, (the designer of our curriculum), as chief technical director. Something just doesn't add up. Cheers jb

fUSS - There is a simple question to be asked here and that is "Why did we drop out of the top fifty in the first place?" Now don't start to feed me that crap about the emerging nations for if that is to be a good argument something or someone has "educated" those "emerging nations" whiist we have apparently stood still as they passed us.or worse still we have slipped backwards over those years and it is only recently that we have started to climb up these rankings (incidently many people regard these rankings as of little use). So what is pleasing you?,the improvement in not so accurate ranking figures or is it the improvement of our national team,a measure which to me has never been too bad for we have reached the last World Cup finals and won the Asian Champions trophy in those last 6 years and no doubt that has affected these figures. Now with a few harder games coming up it will be interesting to see how the ratings figures stack up but to me they do not tell me anything that my own eyes tell me regarding the standard of our football. Is that not how it should be?????Cheers jb

jb 1) From my understanding of what has been reported the FFA have successfully implemented the "Just Play" program across 11 nations in OFC, reaching 200,000 kids. 2) The program is not about creating professional footballers. The aim of the program is: "to give children between the age of 6-12 a positive first experience with football & educate them with lessons about important social issues in society such as gender equality and sanitation." 3) Yes. Victory were shocking on Wednesday night. But, why pick on 1 match? Did you watch when Suwon Bluewings played at AAMI Park on 15 March? The Korean team brought mainly younger Korean players to the away game & they were rubbish. Did you watch the ACL match MV vs Shanghai SIPG? Young Jai Ingham was outstanding. As was Jason Geria & Nick Ansell. But to get back on topic about THIS aid program.... it is not a program for creating football superstars. It's a program to educate kids through football.

jb: I can not disagree with anything you've written here. Where I struggle is with what this has to do with the actually story we're all commenting on? This Indian program is a format not dissimilar to the 'Roar Activity Program' in Brisbane which introduces football to 65,000 kids across Queensland each year. Much of this activity is paid for by the state government. And just as RAP doesn't distract BRFC from coaching their juniors/women's/men's teams this "Just Play" initiative does not distract the FFA from their other activities. So yes, critisise the FFA on domestic coaching but to draw a link with overseas programs like this is unfair and unreasonable imo.

"This is merely a political exercise, all about inter-governmental relationships between Australia and India" - well I'm sure there's other benefits and more involved than just the two governments (there's at least one UN agency involved) but Peter that statement pretty much sums it up. The fact that association football is being used in this "political exercise" and not AFL, NRL or even cricket is a point lost on many.

i think it is great that the world game is growing in new areas

I am late here, but there is something rather peculiar unfolding. The Indian sports betting industry is huge. I do not have figures, but I suspect it makes FFA look like a minnow. The question is, why isn't this huge, locally based industry taking up the cudgels, and developing a junior sport that will, in due course, open up even more business opportunities? Perhaps the involvement of FFA will lend a degree of honesty to the enterprise? Depends on the gullibility of the Indian populace. This is merely a political exercise, all about inter-governmental relationships between Australia and India. Football is merely an excuse.

For a start Otto rehagel and santos managed just fine with the infrastructure, keeping them competitive (ie. winning euro cup in Portugal beating home nation twice/getting out of the group stage wc, maintaining top 13 ranking in the world)., and poor example because a) Greece is economically ruined country which has evidently now taken it's eventual toll., b) ranieri is known as "the tinkerer" and let's be honest he's had his massive failures as well as his succeses. Now back to ffa, I'm not taking anything away from what they've achieved., but let's be honest., this is all attributed to the ange(post holger/death of golden-gen) era. Name ONE other credible prospective candidate for the job.. Within the measly chicken feed range that they got ange for.. And had they payed for hiddink or mourinho for that matter there's still no guarantees they would've achieved what ange has.,partly even because of anges stellar off-field game in knowing the culture of the country/media/politics. Just sayin

That's chai latte Waz...

FUSS- That's my point exactly. Have the FFA over the last 7 years shown that they have the know how to implement any plan that is aimed at improving our football at grass roots level?. Yes we have reams of paper telling us what should be done but where is the actual proof that the plan is actually working ,for there is precious little evidence that our young players today are any further down the track in skills education and that was surely eviident to you in the way the Bluewings players performed last night for the team,mostly native born Koreans,showed a far higher standard in ball skills and ball movement with only a few Victory players even coming close to equalling them. Cheers jb.

Ranieri was manager of Greece & they lost to Fareo Islands, then took over Leicester & did the impossible. A good coach needs a good infrastructure no matter how good the COACH.

"We are now ranked 2 in Asia which means we are in the highest seeded Pot along with Iran (#1 team in Asia) for the next round of AFC Qualifiers for Russia 2018. To me, this is great news." "Others, I’m sure, will find a negative & blame the FFA for something." Brought to you by the guy that the FFA put over a barrel in public. There's something, But seriously, are you crediting ffa for that achievement? Because we all know the postecoglou appointment was nothing but a combination of sheer serendipity meeting with desperation/not a pot to pi55 in.