Indian teen Snehil Reddy making his name with Crystal Palace

by Nancy Singh September 27, 2016

Indian football is at its peak of growing stage with opportunities knocking on every efficient player’s door. Whilst many players like Gurpreet Singh gaining experience and game time outside the nation. There have been numerous calls over the years that Indian football would only get better with training abroad and the School Football Championship (SFC) is a step in that direction. Snehil Reddy is one such example.

Snehil Reddy, a Grade 8 student of Sreenidhi International School, was among the 10 top young players to train in London with the English Premier League Club Crystal Palace FC.

The SFC, organized by PSL India Pvt. Ltd., provided equal opportunity to all children irrespective of their social and economic background from over 2250 children and selected top 10 players from the SFC League of 2015 for training at Crystal Palace.

The team comprised of children from the age groups of under-10, 12, 14 and 16 from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune. The team was  accompanied on their trip by representatives from the Just For Kicks team. Crystal Palace Football Club is a Technical Partner of School Football Championship and this training is part of their agreement.

The first edition of the School Football Championships backed by Tata Motors, ran for 10 weeks simultaneously in four cities. Over the course of these 10 weeks, 225 teams battled it out to be crowned city Champions. There were teams from the Just For Kicks programme, low-income private schools, and international schools. The organising team along with representatives from Crystal Palace Football Club then scouted for top performers. These children have been further trained to experience details of the footballing world.

The training programme will not only boost their knowledge on football and strengthen their skills but mainly help them draw inspiration from academy players their age and aim to get to that skill level. Hopefully, on return, they share the learning experience and skills to their teammates.

The group also got an opportunity to watch the Crystal Palace versus Stoke City on 18th September. Apart from this they visited Premier League stadiums and went for city sightseeing tour around London.

At the start of the campaign, Gary Mulcahey, Sports Development Director at Crystal Palace Foundation, said “We are looking forward to welcoming this talented group of footballers and their coaches to Crystal Palace Football Club and our Foundation. We hope this partnership will assist in the development of these young players, as they will have access to some of the best facilities and the opportunity to learn from some of the best coaches and trained players their age. We hope this experience will be all that they hoped for and that the visit and all that it entails will be enjoyable.”