Sreenidhi FC, the Telangana-based group, has drawn out a long-term plan to build a sustainable football club and got a place in the I-League form next year. Since Telangana already have ISL team Hyderbad FC, Sreenidhi FC may represent Visakhapatnam.

The club & academy, owned by the region’s well known Sreenidhi Educational Group, has taken an interest in Indian football since 2016. The group already had a fully-fledged cricket ground and infrastructure for other sports but they waited and observed before delving into the tricky world of football in India. 

Chairman of the group Dr KT Mahi, who is also the chairman of the Telangana Football Association (TFA) and Sreenidhi’s director Abhijit Rao brought the academy to life. The focus early on was to work out a plan to improve the grassroots and infrastructure and in 2018, the club stepped up their efforts as they brought in UEFA B-Licensed coach Fabio Ferreira as the Technical Director.

“We have been observing Indian football for a few years now. One thing we knew for sure of is that we want a sustainable model. it is not about putting everything into the first team. We feel that we have built a foundation and felt it is the right time to take the opportunity.

“Everything you do at a club should be to achieve sustainability. The idea is to build a good team and when we get guys with expertise in, the idea is also to educate other Indian coaches. It is not only about developing our club, the TFA is very open to working with us to try and develop an ecosystem here. Only when we make an ecosystem, we can make a significant impact. 

All this is good news for the footballer lovers in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a region that boasted of world-class India national team players and achieved a lot of success in the 1950s and 60s. 

Abhijit added, “We want to give back to football in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. We recruit locally as much as possible. We will definitely be encouraging local talents .”