His story inspired Jhund but not sponsors. Now, slum soccer pioneer seeks assists

The 77-year-old retired sports teacher from Nagpur’s Hislop College is the founder of the Slum Soccer organisation that promotes football among slum children. He organised the first-ever Jhopadpatti Football tournament in 2001 after watching a few such kids pretending to play football by kicking around an empty bucket. The competition was a major success and saw 128 teams participate.

Since then, Barse has organised 19 state inclusion tournaments and inspired several organisations to set up similar competitions across India. He also organises a national slum football event whose winners participate in the Homeless World Cup and coaches slum kids at his academy that adjoins his home.

On Wednesday, the four-day State Inclusion Cup 2022 began at the premises of Barse’s Krida Vikas Sanstha after a two-year enforced break because of the Covid-19 pandemic. But funds have dried up. This year, 12 men’s teams and eight women’s teams from across Maharashtra are participating, a sharp drop from 48 teams in 2019.

Barse’s son Abhijeet, who is the co-founder and CEO of Slum Soccer, says sponsorships are hard to come by since a lot of companies have diverted their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to PM-CARES and charities for Covid relief work.

“A lot of our previous sponsors have diverted their CSR funds to the PM-CARES fund and charities for Covid relief work. Besides, some of their business got affected and their policies changed. Unfortunately, sports is not a top priority. In 2019, we held state tournaments not just in Maharashtra but also in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Haryana with the help of local NGO partners. But, even their funds have dried up this year,” he adds.

Barse is in a hurry to organise the state and national tournaments as they will be used to pick teams for the Homeless World Cup that will be held in New York in September. But, critical acclaim for Jhund has not translated into sponsorships, he adds.

“We thought that with so much interest in the film and so many congratulatory messages coming in, the sponsors would come directly. People will come forward to make Slum Soccer bigger, but that did not happen. Initially, we were not sure if we could organise the national tournament as well but local authorities in Pune invited us to hold it there and promised us support. So, the nationals are next month. Hence, we hurriedly organised the state tournament now. There is a lot of interest from slum children, we had to turn down teams because we need to arrange their stay, food, transport. These 20 teams will occupy rooms, the hall in our academy and if needed, some can sleep in our house too. But the tournament needs to happen,” Barse tells The Indian Express.

Having travelled to various events following the film’s release earlier this month, the 77-year-old says he has not been keeping well the past few days but is still looking forward to getting back on the football ground. He now dreams of opening a full-fledged coaching academy for slum football teams.

Explaining his father’s aspiration, Abhijeet says, “At present, we can only provide coaching for a few weeks to those whom we will take to the Homeless World Cup. But, if we want any real talent to come out of these slums, they need long-term coaching. We are hoping to start a free residential coaching academy where we can select the best talent from across India and coach them. Children from slums, orphans, homeless or street children, those with addictions, any of them can be taken in.”

He adds, “My father started these tournaments and coaching to give some constructive purpose to slum children who would engage in fights or addictions after school. During the pandemic, even the little time they spent in school was taken away, pushing them more towards bad habits. In the initial months of the pandemic, even we were not able to reach out to the kids in the slum communities, where we actively engage through our volunteers. But later, we managed to contact them. If our theory of sports being used as a means to keep slum kids away from addictions and bad company needed any testing, it happened during the pandemic. Now, more than ever, we need people to come forward and join us in this mission because this is not merely about getting some slum kids to kick a ball, it is about transforming their lives.”

As Barse likes to say, “Yeh Jhund nahi, yeh slum soccer hai (This is not a herd, this is slum soccer).”