Dempo Sports Club celebrated AFC Grassroots Day for their U-12 boys at their academy complex at Ella in Old Goa.
The grassroots festival was held under the leadership of Youth Development coach Anthony De Souza who was assisted by the other coaches – Alexander Fernandes, Antonio Pereira, Pradip Chopdekar and Sachin Gawas.
The festival comprised six-a-side games, station games and tricks with the ball. The participants were also given a talk on football and explained about the various facets of the game followed by a quiz on the World Cup.
Each participant received merchandise from Dempo SC.
Speaking on the occasion Dempo Youth Development Coach Anthony De Souza stressed the importance of having grassroots festivals, saying “Grassroots festivals are important to introduce the child to football at a young age. Such kind of events bring the child closer to football at a young age. It is important to organize such festivals on a larger scale all over India”.
Dempo SC Technical Director, Karnagaran (Katz) Naidoo informed the assembly that the club would endeavor to host a grassroots festival once every month from the new season beginning June 2018. “There is a need to bring more and more kids to the field to play the beautiful game and we at Dempo SC believe in spreading the game across Goa. We would ideally wish to organize more such festivals in the future, probably once every month”, he opined.
