Corpn sets goal to shape students into soccer champs

Students studying in the schools run by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) will get free football coaching as the civic body has decided to appoint a football coaching academy under the Smart City initiative. 

According to a Corporation resolution, the initiative is a part of the City Investments To Innovate, Integrate and Sustain (CITIIS) initiative, under which the civic body is upgrading the infrastructure of Corporation schools and providing training to teachers. The civic body has allocated Rs 95.25 crore to implement the CITIIS project. 

“The coaching is a part of ‘sports and extra-curricular activities’ component. The Great Goals Trust has been shortlisted to conduct the coaching sessions,” the resolution said. 

The coaching and training programme will be conducted for 60 students across three schools with 20 students per school. Students from classes 6 to 8 will be trained. A total of 80 training sessions per school, spread over a period of 11 months, totalling 240 training sessions, will be conducted. 

In one of the three selected schools, only girls will be trained and in the other two schools, both boys and girls will be trained. 

The civic body will spend Rs 7.95 lakh for the coaching. Apart from the coaching expenses, the civic body will also spend Rs 7,200 as insurance cover to the selected students so that they can get treatment in case of any injury during training. 

The funds will be taken from the CITIIS fund, which is managed by the Chennai Smart City Ltd. The civic body will place the proposal before the Chennai Smart City Ltd Board for approval and ink a memorandum of understanding with the Great Goals Trust to implement the initiative.