Internet Desk: Countrywide scouting for third batch of the prestigious Reliance Foundation Young Champs (RFYC) residential football scholarship is scheduled to kick off on Thursday, 6th April 2017. The programme currently hosts 41 Young Champs selected over the last two years at its Navi Mumbai facility, and is aimed at scouting talents through the eight ISL clubs’ grassroots initiatives between the age group of 11 to 14 years.
Piet Hubers, Technical Director, ISL Grassroots and Mark Veassen, Coach, RFYC will lead a team of grassroots coaches over the next eight days visiting the ISL club cities to identify promising talents for RFYC’s third batch. The first phase of scouting for the third batch will commence from Mumbai on April 6, before moving to Kolkata (on April 7), Guwahati (April 8), Delhi (April 9), Kochi (April 10), Chennai (April 11), Goa (April 12) and Pune (April 13).
The select talents will then be called upon for a week long (2 -8 May 2017) final round of selection in Mumbai with the shortlisted candidates receiving fully paid residential scholarship for developing their all-round game and fulfilling their academic ambitions at Reliance Foundation School at Navi Mumbai.
The coveted RFYC scholarship has emerged as one of the most holistic sport programmes in the country with football and education as its founding pillars. Over the past two years, the talents have had the opportunity to visit various EPL clubs to play friendlies with respective academy teams as well as compete in domestic tournaments in India.