SAI looks to field its teams in age-group nationals

SAI looks to field its teams in age-group nationals
Sports Authority of India (SAI) could be soon challenging the states teams for supremacy in the sub-junior and junior nationals as the government organisation has already opened up channel of discussion on those lines with many national federations.

As of now SAI concentrates on training of talented sportspersons at its various regional centres and providing support for the national camps but the sportspersons represent their respective states in the national championship.

Confirming the development, SAI Director General Injeti Srinivas told Mirrorthat they were currently considering 8-10 disciplines in which SAI could field their team against the state associations as part of their Long Term Development roadmap which will also include conducting nationwide talent hunt programs in association with the federations and establishing centres of excellence.

“We want to field our teams only in sub junior and junior nationals and we will stay away from the seniors. In seniors, states and other units provide these players will employment and we do not want to affect that system,” Srinivas added.

“By doing this, we can quantify the performance of our SAI trainees and create a roadmap for their development and the pressure of performance will keep us on our toes.

“We will also try and host tournaments so as to put our infrastructure to better use.”

SAI’s Internal Tournaments

The process will begin with SAI reviving their intra-region and inter-regional tournaments in the coming few months and those events will eventually serve as selection meets for the SAI team. While the final decision on the disciplines that SAI would target first, it is reliably learnt that football, hockey, volleyball and gymnastic are likely to be the front runners.

MOU regarding football

The Sports Ministry has already signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the All India Football Federation (AIFF) for the development of talents and effective use of infrastructure ahead of the U-17 World Cup which will be held in India in 2017. “We have more or less arrived at an arrangement with AIFF under which SAI will get a direct entry in the newly proposed U-15 league as a regional team. I have no doubt we can have similar understandings with other federations,” said a confident Srinivas.