GUWAHATI, 8 Dec: Gumpe Rime, former goalkeeper for the junior India team and head goalkeeping coach at the Reliance Foundation Young Champs Academy (RFYC), underscored the importance of structured pathways for aspiring footballers at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference titled ‘Grassroots to gold: Unlocking the sporting potential of the Northeast’, held in Guwahati on Friday.
During the panel discussion on ‘Vision 2028: Mapping the future of sports sevelopment in Northeast India’, Rime highlighted Reliance Foundation’s transformative initiatives in the region.
“Reliance Foundation has a lot of programmes running in the Northeast. We started a Children’s (Naupang) League that is currently running in four districts: Aizawl, Champhai, Kolasib, and Lunglei, in Mizoram, where a lot of the footballers come from. More than 3,000 kids have benefitted from this initiative and we also hold some clinics every year to help in the development of coaches.”
He elaborated Reliance Foundation’s comprehensive approach to grassroots football development and its emphasis on creating clear pathways to professional levels through initiatives like the Reliance Foundation Youth Sports (RFYS) and the Reliance Foundation Development League (RFDL). “Since 2016-17, we run a programme called RFYS, where we hold football competitions for school and college students.
We give a platform to school students in various places in the Northeast like Mizoram and Guwahati, where everyone is invited to participate. A lot of players from this tournament have been identified and picked up by clubs. It is a great platform for young budding talent to showcase their talent.”
Building on the grassroots foundation, the RFDL, which features U-23 teams, provides a regional competition structure with a pathway to national and international exposure.
“For the first time this year, a team from my state (Arunachal Pradesh) is also taking part in the competition, which is happening in Shillong. The top teams from each region will play the national round, while the winners and runners-up from the national championship will play in the NextGen Cup, the last edition of which was held in the UK. The NextGen Cup features age group sides of the top EPL clubs, so that our boys get exposure of playing against the best,” Rime added while talking about the players who have made the step up to India’s top league, the Indian Super League, through these competitions.
Having been in the Indian footballing ecosystem for many decades as a player and coach, Rime also stressed the importance of developing and investing in coaches and not just players, as well as embracing technology, citing the example of Reliance Foundation Young Champs Academy’s scouting system. “We need to think about how much we invest in the development of coaches and not just players. We have technology that helps assess players’ physical maturity and how far they can go physically. We also have a sports science team that helps us in finding out the best possible talent. When we do scouting, it is position-specific. If I have to look for a goalkeeper, it has to be someone tall. There are a lot of physical metrics that our sports scientists look at.”
Rime will be conducting a goalkeeping workshop on 12 and 13 December in the current edition of the Naupang league in Mizoram, followed by a match day on the 14th. A total of 48 goalkeepers and 29 coaches will be part of the clinic, which will feature both theoretical and practical sessions on goalkeeping.
