SL Benfica Signs Historic Partnership With Sreenidi Deccan FC
SL Benfica has announced their first-ever partnership in the Indian market, with I-League club Sreenidi Deccan FC.
The Portuguese club will have a permanent presence in Sreenidi Deccan’s structure with coaches who will monitor and coordinate the development of players in their training programme.
For the first time in its history, SL Benfica has secured a long-term partnership with an Indian partner, recognising India’s importance in the Asian football market.
With this partnership, SL Benfica hopes to contribute to the regional development of Indian athletes within the scope of the Benfica methodology and thus contribute to a new generation of Made in Benfica footballers in the most populous country in the world and where football is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.
The SLB delegation also met with the President of the Indian Football Federation, Kalyan Chaubey, sharing ideas about the Portuguese development system and how Benfica can contribute and help to the development of soccer in India by sharing knowledge, using the partnership model it is implementing with Sreenidi.
Representing SL Benfica, Miguel Reis, SLB Global Expansion Coordinator, stressed the importance of this partnership.
He said: “SL Benfica is committed to opening regional training and athlete development centres in various countries. Therefore, we had to bring this project to India. It’s the country with the largest population in the world, and it has a huge potential to develop athletes.
“We are in the right place at the right time to identify these potential athletes and use our resources by being permanently on location.”
In his speech, Davide Gomes, Coordinator of SLB’s international projects, added: “We will start a long-term training process, working with all ages, together with local coaches, under the supervision of our coordinator Luís Figueiredo.
“We’re getting to know and identify the specific context of the country so that we can contribute to the growth of football in India. Sreenidi is a club that already has two U17 players in the national team and we aspire to increase this representation with our help.”
