The Hindu : Sport / Football : Satyam to back national collegiate competition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 06, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Football

Satyam to back national collegiate competition

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Satyam Computer Services on Tuesday announced a national football tournament for college. The Satyam Football Challenge will be a first of its kind competition featuring as many as 4000 college teams.

The teams have been drawn from ten States — Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

Satyam chairman and founder Ramalinga Raju said, “Our passion to promote football in India has led us to create this inter-college tournament.”

In addition to providing cash prizes at various tournament levels, Satyam will fly the Football Challenge championship team to South Africa to witness the matches at the Confederation Cup next June.

Teams from colleges throughout the ten States are eligible to participate in the tournament. Winning teams from each State will then square off against on one another to determine the national champion. The tournament is expected to enhance participation in football throughout India and Satyam on its part has committed to administer the tournament for ten years.

“It is a fantastic concept,” welcomed former international Victor Amalraj, who was a household name in India for a decade beginning 1980.

“In my days there was no corporate support for football but I am so happy to see more and more people showing interest in the game. I have never had any doubts about the talent but we have to have better infrastructure. “We have to look beyond just medals and trophies for playing football and financial security would be a big attraction for the younger generation to take to the game in a big way. It is now for players from colleges to take the advantage of this support from Satyam.”

The All India Football federation president Priyaranjan Dasmunsi praised the sponsor, “We are very excited about the Satyam Football Challenge. An inter-college competition will help grow the talent pool for the game in India. With corporate involvement, the game should get better than past. We need to improve the infrastructure a bit, especially the playing fields. We need huge support from the corporates to develop our own grounds.”

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport