Significance of introducing a primary licensing procedure by AIFF for newly build-up residential academies

Without a doubt it can be said that football has been given a new shape in our country. And the growing numbers of residential and non- residential academies are the proof of the immense popularity of the game in the nation. Youths are now more interested in joining academies than growing up in district clubs which was a common trend earlier. Since facilities are much more convenient in the modern academies, parents are also quite optimistic about the success of their children and became very much active to send their kids to those academies.  

It is indeed a positive side and should be appreciated that people are taking up sports so seriously and simultaneously several academies are being built up in different parts of the country. The ISL franchisees have also made a great effort and introduced the modern technology and constructed well-furnished academies in their respective zones, which in turn will definitely have some positive outcome in near future.

I believe that all the football academies participating in the Youth Leagues conducted by All India Football Federation are very much well aware of the basic criteria of running youth academies in a perfect manner. Their long term experience of maintaining academies and also the fact of the necessity of being certified by AIFF to some extent forced them to abide by all the AFC rules. While everything seems be to be perfect and the interest for the game in also enhancing among the citizens of the country, there are still some path halls can only be observed given a considerable thought.

As I have mentioned earlier that the maximum number of recently grown up Residential and non- residential academies are yet to be approved by the AIFF or IFA and it is quite true that in our country escaping the rules set out by authorities are pretty comprehensible until the observation is done according to the criteria. Thus AIFF has taken up the issue of certifying the academies all across the country very seriously and my concerned is not for them but for those academies who have come into the picture in very recent time and claim themselves to be a well- organized football academy although they have been listed or approved by the AIFF.

I strongly believe that so far no one has felt the necessity of the most important fact  that if the youths are not being trained by experts and above all if the recently grown up academies does not have any concrete goal and philosophy to run their respective academies without a doubt it can be presumed that the a huge number of youth of our country will be misguided. Thus I believe that there must be an initial permission and investigation process should be followed before an academy is allowed to start their residential project. Followed which there should be another phase of certification process by AIFF which will enable them to participate in AIFF organised football tournaments. 

Besides that we are totally unaware of the exact motives of the owners to build the residential academies. Initially it may look attractive but in future it may turn out the opposite. Hence considering the future of the youth and reputation of our football culture our football association (AIFF) should consider the matter very seriously. They must set out some criteria or certification procedure before one could build a residential football academy.