Saran Corporate Soccer 5s enters the Limca Book of Records!

Saran Sports, India's leading corporate sports event management company, has created history in the Indian sporting landscape by breaking into the prestigious Limca Book of Records, with their event, the Saran Corporate 5s being recognized as the World's longest running and largest corporate soccer 5s event. The glorious celebration attained new heights today as Indian national football team captain Sunil Chhetri presented Saran Sports with the Limca Book of Records certificate, which was accepted on behalf of Saran Sports by Sanjiv Saran Mehra, the Founding CEO and Director of the company.

The Saran Corporate Soccer 5s has witnessed participation from 221 corporate teams over the past 11 years in these championships. It started with 24 teams in 2002 and has grown to 83 corporate teams participating in 2012. The various categories that have been introduced include the Super Cup, Elite Cup, Champions Cup, Salver, Bowl, Ladies Cup and Media Cup, which ensures that every corporate team based on skill sets gets a level ground to participate competitively. In 2011 a record 83 corporate teams participated, which included India's leading companies from a cross section of sectors such as Information Technology, Banking and Finance, FMCG, Consultancy, amongst others. With each passing year the tournament has grown in stature and in popularity.

Participants in the Saran Soccer 5s have ranged from Junior Managers to India Inc's big wigs, including personalities like Sunil Kaushal, Regional Chief Executive, Standard Chartered Bank; Nitin Paranjpe, CEO and Managing Director, Hindustan Unilever Ltd.; R. Gopalakrishnan. Executive Director, Tata Sons; Nirvik Singh, CEO, Grey Group, Asia-Pacific; Mihir Doshi, CEO, Credit Suisse India; Sunil Mehta, Chief Executive and Country Head, AIG; Ashwini Kakkar, Vice Chairman, Mercury Travels; Navalbir Kumar, Managing Director, IDFC, Asset Management; Rajnish Narula, CEO and Country Manager, Canara Robeco India; Partha Chatterjee, Executive Director, Keys Hotels; Rajeev Piramal, Executive Vice Chairman, Peninsula Land Ltd.; Tarun Anand, Ex-Managing Director, South Asia, Thomson Reuters; Jai Shankar, CEO and MD, Danaher India, amongst others.

Sanjiv Saran Mehra, CEO Saran Sports said, "We are absolutely thrilled to enter the Limca Book of records and receive it from the Zen master of Indian Football, Sunil Chhetri!"

He further added, "This event serves as the ideal platform for the busy executives to relive their school and college days. The tournament has successfully managed to create a stress free environment for relaxed interaction away from the pressures of work place and in the process has led to team building and camaraderie within the employees of the companies."

For the past five years, Saran Sports is also running the very successful Saran Corporate Soccer Program, the only one of its kind in the country which includes different formats such as the Corporate Soccer 5s Championship, the Corporate Indoor Soccer Championship and the Corporate Soccer League.

A personal congratulation to my friend Sanjiv Saran Mehra and his team!

Opinion on Indian Football: Sanjiv Saran (Saran Presents)

At the Soccerex European Forum last week in Manchester Indian football was well represented with over 20 people there from federations, the government, institutions, agencies and clubs. I spoke to some of these people to get their views on Indian football and will run a series across the week with these very interesting different view points.

I start the series with my good, old friend Sanjiv Saran Mehra (Founding CEO & Director, Saran Presents) who organises corporates sports and school football in Mumbai.


Where do we stand with Indian football today?

I think it has a long, long way to go. I don't think its infrastructure development only which will solve our problems, you need to spread the sport at the grassroot level. Right now we are only focusing on the big cities, showing the popularity of football in the big cities. I think what you need to do is to get into the smaller cities, the 'B' and 'C' towns. I think the onus should really be on the state associations who through their districts need to take the route of taking it into the smaller towns. That is the only way you can popularise the sport.

You also need to have a system and a structure where not only the elite schools who have access to grounds, football competitions and championships. Its got to be across the board. So its got to be the under-privileged schools, the municipal schools, the NGOs because thats where the talent and the skills are, that's where the hunger is. So I think its got to be long thoroughbred plan and vision which needs to be implemented over the next five to 10 years. Thats the only way you can see results coming in.

Just infrastructure by itself will not sort things out. You need to attack the grassroot level in a pyramid format. We start at the grassroot level, spread it out and start working upwards.

According to me thats the simple strategy to move forward!