Neil Lennon with Celtic’s guests
Celtic Football Club are working to promote the beautiful game in India. They have teamed up with the Mahindra Youth Football Challenge and as part of the programme two Indian teenage stars recently spent a week training in Scotland with the Glasgow giants.
The Mahindra tournament is played out in six cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Cochin, Goa and Calicut.
More than 3000 players from 192 schools took part and the winning teams from each centre came together in Bangalore for an inter-city championship. At the same time, the teams and their coaches received specialist training from Celtic coaches who flew out from Scotland.
Throughout the final stages of the tournament the Scottish coaches shortlisted the best individual players, who were then invited to Glasgow.
This year the honour fell to Gaurav Bora (14) from Delhi and 15-year-old Sufaid Ali Pookkodan from Kerala, both of whom are central defenders.
The youngsters spent an eventful seven days as guests of Celtic. On their first night in Scotland they found themselves in the centre circle during the half-time break in the recent Celtic v Kilmarnock Premier League match.
Gaurav and Sufaid Ali were introduced to the crowd and were given a warm welcome on a cold Glasgow night as Celtic went on to win 4-1.
During the rest of their stay they visited a mosque and a Hindu temple, enjoyed a tasty night out at Mr Singh’s, one of Glasgow’s top Indian restaurants, and trained with young Celtic stars of the future.
They even found the time to keep up with their studies at a local school.
This was the second year of a three-year commitment by Celtic to the Mahindra tourney and it is understood negotiations are currently taking place to extend the arrangement.
Celtic worked closely with Glasgow-based Oceanic Media Consulting, who organised many of the social and cultural events for the two visiting players.
A Celtic spokesman said: “We’d like to thank Oceanic who were crucial in assisting with the week’s activities.”