Manorama Club Award: Future FC, a humble academy moulding next-gen stars

Kochi: Future Football Club, a soccer academy based at Eloor, Ernakulam, and one of the three finalists for the Manorama Sports Club Award 2019, have developed a reputation for producing players of quality.

Established in 2013 with 40 children, Future FC's vision is to groom youngsters to take up football as a career and, to this end, they provide the necessary infrastructure required to nurture professional players. 

Young footballer Nishad Roshan, who made it to the Kerala camp for the Santosh Trophy last year, is among the Future academy products who currently play at top-flight clubs.

Today, there are 300 aspiring footballers between the ages of five and 18 being coached at the academy.

The youngsters have regular training sessions at the FACT football ground which has always been a beehive of sporting activities. The academy functions on the premises of the FACT unit at Eloor and the public sector fertilizer company charges no fee for using its facilities. 

Earlier, the office-bearers of the academy were chosen from the parents of the trainees, but now, FACT employees take care of the club's day-to-day activities. A B Hamsa is the current president while Walter Antony, a former Santosh Trophy player, serves as the secretary. 

The club's age-group teams started taking part in tournaments in 2015 and their major achievement came in 2019 when they reached the final round of the U-13 I-League. Apart from Nimshad and Alphin Walter, who currently play for the reserve side of Gokulam Kerala FC, the other top talents to have emerged through the ranks of Future FC are Athul Unnikrishnan, a former under-18 Mohun Bagan player, Bengaluru FC U-13 player Cyrus Abhilash, Central Excise's Abhi Chandran and Ummar Hashim, and K S Mahin and Faris Ali, members of Kerala Blasters' U-15 squad. 

"The club's operational and administrative expenses are met from the modest fee collected from the parents. However, we make sure that paucity of funds will not hinder the children from going after their dreams," said an office-bearer. 

V P Shaji, who has represented Kerala at the Santosh Trophy both as a player and coach, is the head coach at the academy. His assistants are Walter Antony, Paul P Thomas, T K Ashraf, D Pramod Kumar, Rajeev Raj, Kaladharan, Rejison E Thomas, Jobish and K T Abhilash. Most of them have played the game at the state level and are licenced coaches.