IFA mulls strikers' academy with Balaram as advisor

KOLKATA: The Indian Football Association (IFA) is planning to have an academy dedicated to the development of strikers, with Indian football legend Tulsidas Balaram as advisor.
Senior IFA officials also held a meeting with some former players on this issue on Monday.
"Tulsidas Balaram has given his consent to be the advisor. He may not be able to be physically present but his suggestions would be extremely crucial," said IFA secretary Joydeep Mukherjee."Today's meeting was very fruitful. The intention is to find strikers from Bengal."
Former players like Biswajit Bhattacharya, Sisir Ghosh, Dipendu Biswas, Sanjoy Majhi, Prasanta Chakraborty were present and it was learnt that they are all in favour of the academy.
The only aspect they raised was the need to have players of other positions during situation training. Mukherjee assured them that would be complied with whenever required.
The target now is to have two such Strikers' Academy --- one in and around the city and another in some other part of Bengal --- with 15 wards who will be scouted from across the state. Licensed coaches will be appointed to train the players.
There are still a lot of aspects that need to be worked out before the academy sees the light of the day but Mukherjee remains confident.
Meanwhile, the IFA held another meeting on Monday for the development of football in the districts.
United SC's Nabab Bhattacharya floated the idea of having a franchisee-based league at the district level where each district will have one team. Players will be scouted from across Bengal to form a pool from where the franchisees will recruit them and then play each other on home and away basis. Not only will it help in unearthing new talents but also benefit the Santosh Trophy team.
Bhattacharya also suggested the IFA to discuss with the state government to build a sportspersons' hostel in Kolkata so that players coming in from other parts of Bengal don't face accommodation issues.