Mission XI Million, the biggest school sport outreach programme was launched by the Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports Vijay Goel in the presence of President of AIFF Shri Praful Patel.
A first of its kind, the programme will encourage children to play the beautiful game of football, gain healthy habits and learn important life lessons in teamwork and sportsman spirit.
The approach is to work with school principals and sports teachers and encourage and incentivize them to make children play football games on regular basis.
Mission XI Million is a massive school engagement programme for football. Designed with international sporting expertise, but keeping in mind the ground realities of our huge and varied country, it aims to instill the passion for football in 11 million children from every part of the country.
The key idea of Mission Xi Million is that every child should have the opportunity to play the world’s most popular sport. To make that happen, schools and parents must be equally involved in children’s physical well being.
Mission XI Million equips parents and schools with the equipment and the knowledge about how to make regular play a reality for their wards.
The program will be rolled out in every state of the country, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari from Kutch to Imphal.
Mission XI Million will take the beautiful game of football to at least 11 million boys and girls around the country. Children in every state, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Kutch to Arunachal Pradesh will get a chance to learn, play and enjoy football.
Vying to reach out to over 37 cities and 12,000 schools across all 29 states of India, the initiative will focus on games that can be adapted to different field sizes and conditions, with special emphasis in small sided games (4 vs. 4 and 5 vs. 5). It is divided into three phases: seminars for teacher and educators, in-school activities and football festivals, which will run up to September 2017.