The 5th Edition of the SFA Championship started its Registrations

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai: The fifth edition of the SFA Championship for school students in Mumbai will flag off in the first week of December and is set to become the biggest and grandest such championship of the city. This season of the championship will see athletes in the age-group of 6 to 18 vie against each other in top graded multiple sporting facilities across Mumbai including the Mumbai University Sports Complex at Kalina (Santacruz), University Sports Pavilion in Marine Lines (Athletics), MSLTA at Cooperage (Tennis), MHA in Churchgate (Hockey).

Top educational institutes, including Dhirubai Ambani International School, Aditya Birla World Academy, Jamnabhai Narsee, Utpal Shanghvi Global School, R.N Podar, Ryan Group of Schools have already registered and are diligently preparing for SFA championship. Registrations are still open and are in their last leg and the organisers are confident of hosting no less than 20,000 athletes at the championship.

“SFA was conceived to ignite sports at the grass-roots level, to help schools and their kids compete and master their favourite sports in right settings. Our aim is to attract every child to the sports field. We not only organise the SFA championship in true Olympic style, in terms of magnitude and class, but have also digitised the entire process that becomes a testimony for each participant at the SFA Championship. At the click of the mouse, sports data and statistics since SFA began in 2015 can be traced which gives us immense insight into how sport is played in the city.”  Said Rishikesh Joshi, Founder, Sports For All

In the last four years, 7 SFA Championships (4 in Mumbai and 3 in Hyderabad) have successfully been held and over 1,700 Schools and 1,14,000 unique athletes have participated. A two-city event currently, SFA looks to expand this platform to 20 other cities in the next three years. SFA hopes to make India proud of an all integrated Inter-School sporting system, which will churn out a talent pool of champions that will go on to represent India.

The big highlight of SFA is also their online portal which is a digital and data-informatics platform for talent identification, showcasing the school and player’s journey through the years. Apart from medals and trophies in each discipline, the Best Sportsperson and the Best School for Sports Awards are also given, making it a must-participate-in competition.

Sharing her testimony of the SFA Championship, Ms. Manisha Arondekar, Principal of last year’s champion school, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Vidyalaya( Borivali) said “It was an excellent experience for our students where they competed with schools of varied categories. The games organized were professional and the online record system made it transparent and fair. It was an awesome experience for our students”

SFA Mumbai saw participation from over 500+ schools and 17,000+ athletes last year. The championship, like last year was graced by India’s only Olympic Gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, cricket star Harbhajan Singh, tennis star Somdev Devvarman & International Boxing coach Ronald Simms Jr, will this year too, host numerous workshops, clinics, exhibition games, hydration & nutrition sessions which will be open to participating and non-participating students, parents and other guests. 

Mumbai is ready to witness yet another season of the fiery sporting action at the SFA Championships. Registrations are open online on www.sfanow.in and will close on 20^th November .