The FIFA Under-17 World Cup is almost here and one person who has shown great sportsmanship already has been former Indian footballer from Manipur, Renedy Singh.
Singh visited the Manipuri footballers, who are part of the Indian team and saw the pitiful conditions they live in that he knew he had to help them. Speaking to The Quint, Singh described how he did his bit to help the young team.
I was visiting Manipur with a friend and visited the homes of the boys and saw they were in a bad condition. The next day I visited the captain’s house and his mom was saying “my son is the captain but I don’t have money to buy tickets”.
Hearing the team’s captain’s family say they were unable to watch their son play, Singh took to his social media to ask for help with funding the players and their families during the world cup.
I wanted to contact our CM (Biren Singh) who is also a footballer and asked him for help. I spoke with his son-in-law who asked me not to worry and said funding will be arranged. Lots of private citizens also came forth to help.
Singh said that most of the parents have made it to the National capital to watch their sons play. On the importance of having their family around to watch them play the match, Singh said, “this is possibly the most important match of their lives, we don’t know when India will qualify for the world cup next so if their families can watch them, there’s nothing better than that”.
The former football star said that while all the eight Manipuri boys come from extremely humble backgrounds, the All India Football Federation gave them world class training that enabled them to become world class players and go all over the world to get exposure.
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