Multi sporting inter-school event, Sports For All (SFA), which has been chosen as the Best Sports Start-up in 2018 by the FICCI, is back in Mumbai. The annual event had a forced break last year due to the unseasonal cyclone Okchi that swept the city during early December 2017. Comprising of over 25 sports, including 19 disciplines of Olympic sports, the SFA Championship is set to showcase the best sporting talent in the city December 3 to 15.
The motto of this sports movement is “Catch Them Young & Make A Good First Impression”. The registrations for this prestigious championship have begun are open to athletes between 6-18 years of age.
“At the grass root level, it is very important that young kids have a good and professional experience when they play sports for the first time. There have been many instances where youngsters have stopped playing sport or have been barred by their parents because of unpleasant experiences in their build-up years. SFA is changing that,” said Rishikesh Joshi, founder and managing director SFA.
Since its debut in 2015, SFA Championships have seen more than 70,000 student athletes from 800 schools participating in the professionally conducted rigorous tournaments held at DY Patil Stadium (Nerul), Maharashtra Hockey Association (Churchgate) and Mumbai University Sports Pavilion (Marine Lines).
“It was a wonderful experience playing at SFA, so many multi-disciplines of sports professionally going on at the same time, we felt like we were playing at the Olympics, albeit at the school level. I am really excited and looking forward to be there this season again,” said Vedant Parekh, from MET Rishikul who won Gold in archery last time in the championship.
SFA is open for all schools in the city. It also doesn’t limit a school in numbers of their participating teams. All events are conducted according to international association guidelines and all state and district federations are signatory in the certificates issued by SFA. All referees and judges in SFA are also provided by the state and district federations for its ratification.
“A school may be strong enough to field two football teams or three hockey teams, then why should it be limited to just one! So, in SFA we don’t limit anyone or any school from participating in as many sports they want. There is a lot more in SFA to unveil and unearth in the coming few days, it is a sporting movement which will shape the sporting future of the country. Ab Jeetega India!” Joshi added.
