Grukul Trust launches School Sports Promotion Foundation

With an aim to promote sports at the grassroot level and produce champion sportspersons, the Grukul Trust, a non-profit organisation, in partnership with the Sports Authority of India has launched the School Sports Promotion Foundation (SSPF).
The SSPF will organise sporting tournaments across the country to identify talent and nuture them through the city, district, state, zonal and national level. At the next level the Foundation will provide coaching to the talented individuals who are identified from these tournaments.
In the first year of its operation, the SSPF will organise school level tournaments in football and cricket and include other sports like hockey, tennis, basketball and athletics from the second year onwards.

The SSPF hopes to reach out to around 1,00,000 secondary and senior secondary schools irrespective of their ownership, economic or social strata they operate in or the board they are affiliated to. In the next phase, rural, sub-urban elementary schools with a strong focus on rural sports would be included in the programme.
"Most of our future champions are in schools today and it is here we need to proactively scout for talent, nourish and prepare them to participate and win and give India its due glory in sports SSPF is aimed towards bridging the existing need gap through a structured system wherein we hope to eventually reach each and every district in the country to unearth talent and empower them to realise their potential," SSPF chairman and former IAS officer Om Pathak told reporters.

Former India cricketer Chetan Sharma has been appointed as the chairman of the School Cricket Council, while former India footballer and a member of India's 1960 Rome Olympics team S S Hakeem will head the School Football Council.