BHOPAL: On the rare occasions when he could arrange a pair of old, worn-out shoes from one of his friends, young Shankar, the lone son of a landless Dalit labourer family, did not have to play barefoot. One would see him darting around the soccer field, commanding the play at any position he played, until in 2010, Shankar Dahiya was selected to the Madhya Pradesh U-15 team as its first-choice goalkeeper.
“Thereafter, I played for various teams in Shahdol district and also at state level, besides completing a three-year Bachelor of Physical Education (BPEd) course. But viable jobs as coach eluded me, forcing me to work at a hotel in Shahdol city on night shift, which would fetch Rs 5,000 monthly,” Shankar, now 29 years of age, recalls.
From the same Shahdol district in eastern MP, prodigious central defender Lakshami Sahees played for the state in nine national football tournaments between 2007 and 2012 in various age groups.
Unable to bear the agony of unemployment despite a postgraduate degree in Sociology, she worked 10 hours daily at a garment store for Rs 5,000 monthly, which often prompted her parents to question what wonders did playing soccer actually do for her?
The frustration of Lakshami, Shankar and many other talented former national prayers from Bicharpur village and other villages of Shahdol district ended in 2021-22, when erstwhile Shahdol divisional commissioner Rajiv Sharma, embarked on a unique initiative ‘Football Kranti’ (FK) inspired by West Bengal’s successful in three districts – Shahdol, Anuppur and Umaria.
The three-tier model saw creation of football clubs in over 1,000 villages of the three tribal-dominated districts, training the raw football talents by former, greatly-overlooked players, and hosting soccer tournaments across the districts to foster a soccer culture.
It was the FK’s second tier, which actually turned out to be godsend for the former national players. Efforts by the planners bore fruit when Nita Ambani’s Reliance Foundation joined the initiative under the Youth Sports Program in 2023.
To train raw talents by qualified coaches, the Foundation roped in a senior Pune coach via the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to shape the former national players into qualified coaches. Getting trained under the AIFF coach, the former players took an exam conducted by AIFF and turned into E license coaches, who were technically skilled to train small boys and girls in soccer at introductory level.
Then came 2023 when Lakshami, Shankar and more than 20 other former players, among them Lakshami’s elder brother Sitaram Sahees, got job as football coaches in schools where the Reliance Foundation was running the training programme for local talents in association with the state government in Shahdol.
Shankar is now a coach at a school in Harrai (Shahdol) and earning Rs 10,000-14,000 monthly by coaching children at the school and the village sports centre inaugurated by the Madhya Pradesh tribal affairs department.
Lakshami is the coach at the Feeder Centre of SAI and state sports and youth welfare department in her native village Bicharpur, which since decades has been a treasure trove of soccer players, earning it the sobriquet ‘Mini-Brazil.’
“I used a part of my earnings for completing the D license course and have also completed a six-week NIS certified training programme at the Minerva Academy Football Club in Chandigarh,” said a proud Lakshami Sahees, who hails from a very humble background.
Just like Lakshami, Shankar too has used part of his earnings as football coach to fund D license course and is now working at getting a C license from the AIFF as well as becoming a NIS-certified coach. “It’s not the monetary earnings, but shaping raw football talents into promising players which gives more satisfaction. While the boys team of the school has won three local school league trophies, even the girls have won a trophy. Girls like Shashinandini, Sanskriti and our boy wonder Deva have made it to the state’s camp for national selection,” he said.
Notably, FK’s succes and the Mini-Brazil Bicharpur village (which forms the nucleus of the unique footaball initiative) even won Prime Minister Modi’s heart, who not only met the children’ part of the programme in 2023, but recently praised the initiative at one of his interviews.
“Bicharpur village has always been rich in football, but due to lack of support, it had turned into a den of gambling and drinking, before I introduced scientific and technical football training in the village in 2002, training dozens of players who went on to represent the state. In the two decades, Bicharpur has given 60-70 male and female players to the state team. However, during the pandemic, football, both training and tourneys, came to a standstill. Then, erstwhile Shahdol divisional commissioner Rajiv Sharma, ushered in the FK model to give new heights to soccer not just in Bicharpur, but all three districts of Shahdol division,” says Raees Ahmad, NIS certified state coach and an integral part of the project.
The author of the football revolution, 2002 batch IAS officer Rajiv Sharma, who took voluntary retirement as Shahdol divisional commissioner in October 2023, has now embarked on the second innings of FK in other regions of MP.
The success of the model has inspired similar initiatives in the tribal belt of Mandla district, where an NGO-run residential school is shaping the careers of 130 young soccer players from tribal families.
“Rajiv Sharma’s FK model has guided us in starting a league for children aged as low as eight years in 50 villages of Mohgaon block. The best talents from those leagues are now making their way into our residential school. Ten players of the MP girls u-15 team which recently won the title at a national tourney in Neemuch, were from our school and three out of those ten, Somni, Ambika and Rajeshwari were products of the FK model inspired efforts. Somni Dhurve importantly has made it to the India u-17 camp,” said Priya Nadkarni, who heads the NGO and the residential school.
The author of the FK revolution, 2002 batch IAS officer Rajiv Sharma, who took voluntary retirement from service as Shahdol divisional commissioner in October 2023, has embarked now on the second innings of FK in other regions of MP.
The 1988 batch state administrative service (SAS) topper who was promoted to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre in 2003, has joined forces with pensioners/retired defence personnel, teachers and bank officers to work on a similar FK revolution among school children in his native Bhind district.
“We’re working with young soccer coach Amit Sarvendra Singh who is coaching 30 very young soccer talents at the SAF Battalion Ground in Bhind city, have organised a school level tourney successfully in Gohad town and also working with schools on ushering a second FK in Akoda Nagar Panchayat area of Bhind district only. Similar efforts are underway in Shajapur district of Malwa region and Damoh district of Bundelkhand, where I was posted in the past in various administrative positions,” said Rajiv Sharma, the author of the successful FK model.