PANJIM: Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecom service providers, in partnership with Goa Football Development Council (GFDC) announced the launch of the third edition of the unique grassroots league initiative, ‘Vodafone GFDC Rising Stars Football Festival 2015’, on Friday.
The festival is a six month long Intra centre, Inter-zone and Champions league football championship tournament exclusively for kids up to the age of 13 years. The festival aims to provide an excellent platform to identify and cultivate young local football talent across the State. This initiative is in line with Vodafone’s commitment to nurture and promote the sport of Football in Goa.
The third edition of ‘Vodafone GFDC Rising Stars Football Festival 2015’, kicks off on September 5 and concludes in February 2016. The football league will showcase over 500 matches, featuring over 3700 young talented players across 31centers in Goa. This year the festival gets bigger and better with Vodafone partnering with GFDC for the third consecutive year, with the objective of imparting professional training and grooming to deserving upcoming football talent in the villages of Goa.
Sharing his views on this unique initiative for young and aspiring football talent in Goa, Ashish Chandra, Business Head – Maharashtra and Goa, Vodafone India said, “The previous editions of Vodafone GFDC Rising Stars Football Festival got an overwhelming response with participation of over 3000 kids. This year, Vodafone is extremely pleased to extend its partnership for third year in a row as the festival gets bigger and better with participation of over 3700 kids featuring in over 500 matches. As a value based organization, Vodafone believes in making a meaningful contribution to society, across the geographies we operate in. Almost every household and family in Goa has young and aspiring children who are seeking the right opportunity and platform to harness their talent. This initiative reinforces Vodafone’s continued commitment to support and promote football at the grassroots level in Goa.”
Dr Rufino Monteiro, Chairman, GFDC said “The Vodafone-GFDC Rising Stars Football Festival” is a launch pad for hundreds of talented Goan youngsters as seen in the last two editions of this unique grassroots tournament. The parents and co-villagers of the trainees deserve to be applauded for their un-stinting support to this meticulously organised tournament by my staff at GFDC and ably supported by Vodafone. From these grassroots matches, The Vodafone-GFDC Rising Stars had representation in Goan national teams wherein 11 of the boys were in the Goan U-15 team for the Mir Iqbal trophy and 14 girls in Goa girls U-14 team at Sub Junior National. The feather in the cap was Sushmita Jadhav of the Moira centre who played in both editions of the “The Vodafone- GFDC Rising Stars Football Festival” and was the star girl’s player in them and represented the Indian U-14 Girl’s team for AFC U-14 Girl’s Regional Championship 2015 at Nepal.” he concluded.
