NEW DELHI: Good news for football players. A new football that will neither burst nor require filling of air has arrived in India and the government-run Sports Authority of India (SAI) has taken the responsibility to distribute across the country.
It has been developed by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the Switzerland-based international governing body of Football, which is distributing it worldwide under One World Football Project.
It is made of synthetic rubber that can be a boon to the poor and rural children who had no means to get the ordinary football repaired as it was susceptible to get burst or puncture.
FIFA got the new football designed to remove this handicap of the poor children and picked up SAI which has its network across the country for distribution, preferring it over the All India Football Federation (AIFF) in view of politics among the sports bodies. AIFF is the oldest sports body promoting football in India since 1937 and it has the FIFA recognition since 1948, the year in which an Indian team participated in the Olympics.
India had bagged the gold in football in the Asian Games in 1951 and 1962. Its ranking in FIFA has, however, fallen from 48 in 1964 to 172.
