Portugal Footbal club Sporting Lisbon  has signed Indian Footballer Sunil Chhetri for its reserve (B) team for one year.
Chhetri started his football career playing for school teams and then for his local club, City Club. Since then, he has represented I-League clubs Mohun Bagan, East Bengal Club and JCT FC.  Sunil had earlier signed a three-year contract with Queen’s Park Rangers in August 2009. But the work permit was rejected by the UK government.
All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel lauded this step and said that it was the dawn of a new era in Indian football.
“This is the beginning of a new era for Indian football but it shouldn’t stop here. For us to improve further and maybe in the coming years challenge the big countries, we need to have a strong foundation,” said Patel here.
“The real issue is at the grass-roots level. The emphasis of the AIFF for the past few years is a strong youth development programme.”
Patel, also union minister for heavy industries, said that the outlook on football was changing and the youth of the nation slowly but surely taking up football rather than cricket.
“Preference of cricket changing now. Youngsters nowadays madly follow European football. They know everything about the English, Spanish and even the Bundesliga.”
“When Sunil plays in Portugal, he will be the brand ambassador and will bring the focus of international football on India.”
Talking about AIFF’s initiative towards youth prgrammes, the minister said that they had recently started three fully functional academies in Navi Mumbai.
“Recently we started three academies in Navi Mumbai which are fully functional and 7-8 are to roll out more.”