Published: 3 November, 2009, 08:52
Edited: 3 November, 2009, 09:41
In the Indian state of Kashmir football is giving young people the hope of changing their lives for the better. A soccer school is raising a generation away from the troubles of the conflict between India and Pakistan.
Srinagar, the state capital of Jammu and Kashmir, is an unlikely setting for a football match.
Aggression is usually far from sporting as the area has been plagued by militancy for the past two decades and has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than fifty years.
However, people come to watch the team of the International Sports Academy Trust or ISAT.
Argentine coach Juan Marcos Troia set up the football academy in 2007 when he first arrived in the state. Despite his initial fears over safety, he has gone on to mould local schoolboys into match-winners who regularly beat the more-established teams.
“We registered 400 boys in the first year up to 16-17 years old, we started coaching them for the very first time in their lives. After two years, these same boys became a B-division team, then an A-division team, and this year we have already qualified for the top division of the state,” Troia says.
In Srinagar, security is everywhere. Despite the regular curfews, protests and strikes that shut down the Kashmir valley, training at the academy continues – but it's not been easy for these teenagers.
“It's very difficult in the kind of climate we are living in, in this situation, where you see all the stone-pelting. We come through the stone-pelting to come for practice here. It's really hard,” Musadiq Mehraj, an ISAT player says.
All ISAT kids here have been affected by militancy in some form, but “the beautiful game” could bring a sense of optimism back to their lives that things could improve.
The captain of the team, Basharat Bashir Baba, is one of three ISAT players selected for professional training by overseas clubs. He will soon travel to Brazil to train in Pele's old club Santos.
It is a huge achievement for a Kashmiri youngster, especially since Basharat was initially denied a passport because his father is a former militant.
“The mentality of a Kashmiri youth is that if the police cannot change, nobody can change. But I think football can change,” Bashir Baba says.
Bashir Baba himself faced discrimination when he first played with a big club in Calcutta.
“They were saying: You are from Kashmir, you are a terrorist, you are a militant. We don't want to play with you.” And I said ok, I will leave the club. And I left the club. I came here, I started my practice with coach Troia, and from the start I dreamt that I would go to Brazil. I don't think anyone there will call you a terrorist,” Bashir Baba says.