EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Arsenal will be training 16 of India’s most talented young soccer players. Aged between 10 and 15, the youths will be staying in London at the training facility; they were selected during a 2 week program held in Calcutta. In the coming month they will begin training at the Emirates Stadium; the Arsenal team has an Indian sponsor who succeeded in convincing them to start the program called “The Arsenal Way”.

While India has the potential to become a football loving country, for some unfortunate reason they have turned cricket. Arsenal has often managed to find talent from the most unusual places. The advantages of training these youths could be tremendous: 1). they could actually become good players, 2). Arsenal could create a dedicated audience in India (a nation of considerable population likely only to increase in numbers and economic status).

No reason exists in my mind why football should not flourish in India as it has in almost every developing country. To encourage its spread and help educate a few young boys is admirable, perhaps more clubs should be doing this?

I remember travelling through India and Bangladesh and being delighted to occassionally see soccer being played; lets hope this happens more often.