South United to partner with Hotfut to setup football arenas

South United Football Club, Bengaluru's first private football club, announced a partnership with Hotfut, India's pioneering and leading sports infrastructure company, to setup football arenas across India. 

Bengaluru-based South United, formed in the year 2012 will be the development partner, they will set up futsal pitches across India. The club will conduct programs that are aimed at creating a platform for young football players in the country. The pitch will play a unique role in giving football players in the U-12, U-10 and U-8 categories a safe, secured, and high quality environment to develop their skills and showcase their talent through various training programs and events.

Also, South United will host scouting programs at the pitch. HotFut Sports provides state of the art infrastructure, fine-tuned technical and management systems, and talented people in an economically viable package. 

With a proven business model and successful yields, HotFut's solutions bring sustainability to sports programs, reducing their dependence on external funding and ensuring their long term stability.
South United and HotFut will use these pitches to continue and further develop their community-oriented programs. Football players and interested people from underprivileged backgrounds can avail the facilities to train and further develop their skills, with help from the football club.

Sharan Parikh, Owner and Director of South United Football Club (SUFC), said "Our sole focus is to ensure Indian footballing talent have an avenue to develop themselves. While our club and soccer schools remain a vehicle to showcase talent, our unique partnership with the pioneers of football arenas, HotFut, will allow our youngest talent and stars to play, train, and develop in a secured and high quality environment.

Pavit Singh, Co-founder and Director of HotFut said, "The fundamental idea behind HotFut was to create better human beings through sport. Our initial focus was to mitigate the disparity in participation via infrastructural solutions. Our partnership with SUFC is a natural extension that renews our commitment to development through sports.”

Astroturf pitch in the Bangalore Football Stadium

April 2011

Located right at the heart of the city, Bangalore Football Stadium is perhaps the only football stadium in India which is owned by a state association.

August 2009

In September 2009, as a part of FIFA’s "Win in India with India" initiative, artificial turfs consultant, Dr. Eric Harrison visited the Bangalore Football Stadium on September 17. Dr. Harrison was also accompanied by Chrysantha Perera, FIFA's Assistant Development officer, also the CEO of Football Federation of Sri Lanka selected as one of the venue where the natural grasses would make way for the artificial turf.

July 2010

In the early days, the project was expected to start in January 2010 once the tendering process gets completed, the installation would typically take four months.

Bangalore Football Stadium hosted the 2010 II Division I-League (one group leg and the final stage) April thru May and the actual work on the artificial turf laying process started only on September 2010. 

September 2010 just when the soil removing work started out

Meanwhile, I Division I-League started on early December. The ground was just not ready and forced HAL to play their first 8 I-league encounters in the away venues. 

The (artificial) grass is bedded now

KSFA was expecting to complete the turf-laying project by January, however, could not stick to the plan and HAL suffered by played all their home matches at the sub-standard Sree Kanteerava Stadium, blowing away the home advantage.

In February 1, this year, FIFA representative Dr. Eric Harrison inspected the pitch of the Bangalore Football Stadium. This visit was a part of the inspection process deployed by FIFA. The inspection went on smoothly with the consultant expressing satisfaction on the work done till date.

The artificial turf was expected to reach Bangalore by February 17 and then another 3 weeks time to lay the turf on the ground. However, pre-monsoon that lashed Bangalore in the month of April further delayed the work.

With just a single home match to play in the I Division I-League, HAL has suffered the most in terms of playing in front of a decent “home ground”.

Football academy coming up under FIFA's Goal project

Finally, keeping off from all kind of speculations, the ground is all done and the inauguration of the artificial turf at the Bangalore Football Stadium is scheduled tomorrow, Wednesday May 18.