Delhi: Dino Morea attends Fraternity Football Tournament finals

The Northeast region boasts of having a rich sporting tradition and several people from this region have set a high bench mark of achievement in sports.

Recently, My Home India, an NGO organised a first of its kind Fraternity Football Tournament at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex here.

The president of My Home India, Sunil Deodhar, said," It is a 12-year-old organisation and we aim to create awareness about the northeast across the country and provide a helpline to the people of the region in every part and corner of this country. We organise such a fraternity cup every year."

"In this fraternity tournament, many locals are also part of it. So, it basically brings youths from different parts of the country and provide them with a platform to strengthen their friendly relationship," he added.

Model and actor Dino Morea inaugurated the final and cheered for the young players during the tournament.

Morea told ANI, "I think it is great I'm here as I support My Home India. They have invited me to come here and watch this football match and meet these young kids. I think it is a great initiative and progranmme as such should be promoted far more. It is all because you give people an opportunity to play sports and have fun and provide a platform to them to showcase their skills. It is exciting. I promote sports and fitness wherever possible, and hence, for me, I'm absolutely happy to be here and support the game."

"I think the youngsters should keep persevering and honestly the country should provide kids with more facilities. There is talent but no facilities and a match like this gives them some sort of hope that maybe in the future they can play for an international team and do really well," he added

Morea further told ANI,"Sports, fitness is very important and for the northeast, they have lot of talent. They just need to go and make it happen. All the northeast kids grow up with football, so, they have the talent too certainly need to go and show it off".

On his comeback to Bollywood, Morea said "I didn't take a break it was just that I wanted to do something else I have started a couple of businesses and produced two movies and I am acting this year. Very soon you are going to see me."

The nine-day-long tournament brought some young football aspirants into the limelight. Teams such as the Meghalaya FC, Sikkim FC, Manipur Student FC, KSO and NCR 11FC, Tangkhul FC and Kangla United FC etc., featured in the tournament.

Mawai of the Kuki Student Organisation said," This is a big platform for us, especially the student organisations and the players definitely got a chance to display their talent and skills. So, I am thankful to them for organising such a tournament."

As many as a total of 12 teams took part in the tournament and put out their best to grab the tournament cup.

Manipur FC and the Kuki Student Organisation (KSO) made it to the finals, which the latter won four-one.

KSO was conferred with a cash prize of Rs.40,000 and a certificate.

Manipur Student FC and Tangkhul FC were declared first and second runners-up and awarded with cash prizes of Rs.25,000 and Rs.15,000 respectively. The Best Player Award was won by Yarso Horam of Tangkhul FC. The top scorer award was conferred on Mawai of KSO and NCR 11. Yurthing of HAO FC was declared the best goalkeeper.

--ANI