India needs more Football Academies, says Nassiri

Veteran striker Jamshed Nassiri today strongly favoured setting up of at least four/five National Football Academies across the country on the pattern of Tata Football Academy (TFA), which meet the standard of International football academies.
A residential academy, TFA is a National Football Academy in true sense as it meets all the aspects matching international standard including infrastructure, training, international exposures unlike other football academies of the country, Nassiri, who was in the steel city here today to inaugurate the Jamshedpur Football League at Gopal Maidan, said.
The premier football academy set up by Tatas have been nurturing football talents from grassroot level and produced majority of the present and past footballers represented the country at International level, he said.

In the recent past, several football academies have come up in the country including one run by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) but majority of them are functioning for namesake as they did not meet the International standard, Nassiri told PTI.
Those academies did not have adequate infrastructure, lacked professionalism, exposure and proper training, said the Iran-born veteran striker of 1970-80s.
Describing TFA as a National Football Academy, Nassiri, who played for all the three major football club of Kolkata- East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Md. Sporting and currently engaged in Youth Development programme, said TFA was the only academy which recruits young talents from across the country while some academies recruits cadets from within their state.

The country needed four/five residential football academies with international standard of training facility, nutrition, infrastructure to nurture them for seven to eight years properly, Nassiri said claiming that had we able to do so, India could face International teams in next few years.