CISCE Football Tournament 2023: Running towards the Goal of Women’s Football

The first-ever women’s CISCE Football Tournament was hosted by La Martiniere for Girls School on the 11, 12, and 13 July 2023. Six schools (including the home team) from across the city and beyond participated in the tournament in U-14, U-17, and U-19 categories.

Girls from Modern High School for Girls, Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar and Delhi Public School Megacity played the final matches against La Martiniere for Girls School in the three separate categories. The home team, La Martiniere for Girls School won all three matches. Particularly, the last match of the tournament, the Under-14 finals between LMG and MHS was a spectacular show of healthy competition among the youngest teams of the game with multiple rounds of penalty shoot-outs in the tie-breaker round.

For many schools, this was the first all-women football team, who came up on the ground and led the ball to the goalpost. “It’s still difficult to form women’s football teams. Bigger organisations need to patronise such initiatives, which will encourage girls to come forward to play football,” said Rupkatha Sarkar, Principal of La Martiniere for Girls, Kolkata, speaking to Edugraph.

Coaches from different schools and the proficient team of referees from the All India Football Federation (AIFF) highlighted the issues of lack of awareness of football rules among teenage girls and their reluctance to play football. There are ample windows to practise and practise, but most often it is difficult to scout them out of the class. They felt that this tournament will motivate a lot of girls.

“As CISCE has started the tournament this year, I’m expecting more schools and female students will register for next year’s tournament”, added Sarkar. Scout from CISCE, Dewakar Karmakar, echoed her thoughts. According to him, “It is wonderful that the girls are getting this opportunity to play in such a prestigious tournament at this young age. It will help them get more fluent with the game in future.”

The pupils and coaches also appreciated the arrangements made by the organisers at the school's end. Mrs Simpal Majumdar, Games Coordinator and Suparna Ghosh, Assistant Teacher of LMG ensured the smooth execution of the tournament. Mrs Majumdar also shared with Edugraph her experience of approaching 35 schools across east and north-east regions and finally ending up with the 6 participating teams.

“As we know, the current ranking of India’s women's football team is 50, according to FIFA rankings. If we continue to involve girls of our country in football in this manner, I am sure we will prosper in the rank,” said IFA secretary Anirban Dutta, the guest of honour of the tournament. He hopes to see the women's team rising to new heights in the future.

We can sense that time and mindset are significantly changing, for instance, Subho Mukherjee, Sr. Mathematics Teacher of MBSV remarked that “today’s generation has a lot of options for distractions and that results in lack of spontaneity. To keep them away from such distractions, sports have a bigger role to play. Because once they are on the field, the girls get inspired to play more and that influences others to join the game. This zeal will also help them become a team player in whichever profession they wish to be in”.

Suhana Choudhury, a student of Class 8 from MHS shared her experience of apprehension before the match. She said, “Playing my first tournament in the Under-14 category, to be honest, I was nervous as I was playing for the first time outside school. But on the field, all my nervousness melted away and I felt an intuition that we will win.”

All the players excelled in their game and the skills they had before the tournament improved. The football ground of La Martiniere for Girls School is the enabler and witness to that improvement of mind, game and knowledge. The achievements during the first CISCE football tournament by all the schools and parents who encouraged the players are to be cherished. Football creates a sense of community and a persona of collective identity and this year’s tournament rightly proved that.