Mumbai : Premier India Football Academy (PIFA) says goodbye to a phenomenal 2010 on all fronts that met a lot of expectations and ticked a lot of boxes, making us look forward all the more to 2011 and the promise it holds. We kicked off the year with our annual All Centre Tournament in February where almost 200 children participated and Pooja Bedi was invited to be Chief Guest.

PIFA made its presence felt at the two biggest festivals in Mumbai as well this year when PIFA Director Nirvan Shah was invited to The Conclave, Malhar 2010 to be part of the panel of judges alongside Sports Journalist Mr Ayaz Memon and Mr Sambit Bal (Cricinfo) and PIFA Directors Anjali & Nirvan were invited to N.M.College Annual Festival Umang to judge the football free style contest along with Dhanraj Pillai.

The year was littered with individual success stories as well for our Academy kids starting off with 14 year old Hussain Vahanvaty who earned a six week training stint with Championship side Queens Park Rangers when he was selected as the best players of the South Mumbai Soccer Challenge. PIFA student Kunashni Parikh was selected as India’s No 1 Goalkeeper & Vice Captain for India U-16 national team and she played in the AFC Tournament held in Jordan. Besides these two, Aryaman Sethi, Calvin Lobo (U-14), Natasha Merchant (U-15), Harshad Meher & Ajit Bhoir (U-16) were all selected to proudly represent their country.

The PIFA Academy has several centers in different locations spread across Mumbai. Over 2000 children train every week under the guidance of 22 coaches who are all specially trained in the PIFA Way. PIFA recognises the need to help the less fortunate and underprivileged and 2010 was no different when alongside numerous social activities in Colaba and Bhayander and the admission of underprivileged children for free into our academy, we also organised the Concern India NGO Tournament in October where 13 teams participated. This is the 2nd edition of this special event.

We smoothly moved on to our International Camps in India which were once again a roaring success as Mr Matthew Elder (ex-Everton Academy player) & Mr Nicolas Jones (current Manchester United Development Coach) were brought down to Mumbai, Chennai and Dehradun for 4 day camps. Both coaches are UEFA B license holders and the camps were extremely successful and valuable to all participants. PIFA has conducted over 25 such camps in India since 2004.

Moving on to professional football matters, this was a breakthrough year for the PIFA Colaba FC Elite division team. The Colaba outfit, who were promoted from the Senior to the Super division in their very first year of formation in 2006-07, followed it up with an extraordinary second consecutive promotion the next season into the Elite division.

This season we played extremely well and were on the verge of a historic 3rd place finish in Mumbai’s top division but a couple of unfortunate results saw us finish 5th, which is a superb result in its own right. The division included 3 teams that are in the current I-League. PIFA Colaba FC followed that up with an extremely good outing in the Maha league qualifiers finishing a very creditable 3rd rounding off a fantastic season.

Besides the Senior team, PIFA also manages an U-19, U-17 and U-15 teams under PIFA Colaba FC while we also have a PIFA Colaba FC Womens team. PIFA Colaba FC probably has the biggest fan base in Mumbai. All this excitement and progress and we’re still striving for more, knowing that we’re on the right track and there is a lot more on the horizon. PIFA says goodbye to a great 2010 but looks forward even more to a 2011 that promises much more fun, learning and innovation. Are you on board?