Strengthening its commitment to promote sports in Odisha further, Tata Steel in association with the Tata Football Academy (TFA), Jamshedpur has selected 20 young soccer talents from the state.

These budding football talents below the age of 16 years would be provided residential, intensive and advance training of international standard at TFA. The young talents were felicitated in a function organized by Unit-6 Athletic Association of Bhubaneswar before leaving for Jamshedpur. The selected players would undergo training for nine days at TFA starting from 17th May, 2011. Tata Steel would bear the entire expenditure incurred during this training period.

Apart from free training, the players would be provided lodging and boarding at Tata Sports Hostel, medical facility at Tata Main Hospital, sports kit for their training. This is the seventh year in a row that the soccer players from the state are being taken to TFA for training.

Mr. D K Samantaray, FA& CAO (East Coast Railway), Mr. Padmanav Behera, Hon’ble MLA & President of Unit-6 Athletic Association, Mr. Tapan Mohanty were among the dignitaries present at the felicitation ceremony.

It may be noted, TFA, set up by Tata Steel in 2004 at Jamshedpur, aims to provide a perennial pool of young footballers trained and oriented to international standards, to the mainstream of national football.

The association of TFA with Odisha being quite old and ever flourishing, the academy has brought out several hidden football talents of the state to the limelight. The strategy has been to ‘Catch Them Young’ to provide them the best in terms of training with modern techniques, strategy, psychological, physical conditioning and related inputs to enable them to be medal winners in the international arena.

Tata Steel has taken several steps for promotion of sports in the state including the setting up of Tata Steel Sports Feeder Centre (TSFC) at Duburi in 2008. Experienced and reputed coaches from TFA impart both basic and advanced training in football and archery to young talents of the state. These young talents are also sent to Tata Football Academy and Tata Archery Academy in Jamshedpur for better exposure and avail further advanced facilities.

To promote rural sporting talents, the Company regularly organises Coaching-cum-Talent hunt camps in archery and football in various places of Odisha.

About Tata Steel & Corporate Sustainability Services
Established in 1907, Tata Steel is the flagship company of Tata Group, the most respected business house in India and one of the top ten steel producers in the world. The Company was founded on the philosophy that society is not just another stakeholder in its business, but its prime purpose. As Tata Steel’s operations have expanded to new geographies, the Company has retained a collective focus on the various areas of corporate social responsibility that impact the environment, people and their health, and society at large. In India, the Company is pledged to causes such as strengthening civic amenities in and around its sites, providing healthcare, education, training, employment and recreation, and preserving culture and heritage, especially of indigenous tribes. Tata Steel has expanded its reach from the city of Jamshedpur and its adjoining urban areas to over 800 villages in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. In 2008, Tata Steel India became the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.