Mumbai IT firms St Angelo’s and OCE has reached a five year deal with Bolton Wanderers FC for acquiring expertise in football development. As part of this initiative, 80 youth from Mumbai will get a chance to attend a 10 day football camp at the Reebok Stadium.
Bolton Wanderer’s Chairman Phil Gartside took part in a function which kicked off the association between the Mumbai firms and the English club. Gartside also stressed unlike other European clubs trying to set up academies in India Bolton Wanderers is different from the others.
“If you look at football now, it’s a big commercial world. The bigger teams, and we are not one of them, they are looking at commercial advantage. We are not doing that. What we are trying to do is use football in a much more modest way for education and maybe find a footballer. Gartside said to TOI.
“If the student likes the taste of a 10-day programme then it encourages him to do the year long programme. We have a two year programme of international B-tech at level three. The benefit of that is he spends two years training as an athlete as well.”
Gartside also said that Bolton is not having any plans to open an academy in India as they are concerned about the dilution of quality while embarking on such an endeavor and stressed the importance on investing in grassroots to develop football in India.
