The Sports Manager

He is on his way to become the ‘first ever’ qualified professional sports manager from Kashmir. Majid Dar is also the first Kashmiri to be inducted in the list of officials deputed by the All India Football Federation for the prestigious Nehru Cup. Adil Makhdoomi reports

As a member of the J and K football team, he was a regular feature in national tournaments like Santosh trophy and Durand cup, the biggest football events in the country. Majid excelled in the midfield and right wingback position.

Majid realised quite early in his life that the Valley lags behind in terms of exposure and professional training standards. He says, “An ever increasing tendency among the local players is to move out of the state to hone their skills and develop their game”. This trend motivated Majid to switch to sports training and management.

Today Majid is a successful sports manager. His skills have been appreciated throughout the country. He is among the select few players throughout the country to have undergone the C-license training camp of the Asian football academy. To further hone his skills he has taken up a sports management course at the Tate Institute of Sports Management, Kolkatta. After completing the course he has plans of going for the high-level B-Level course and becoming a national coach

Majid feels that there is a serious dearth of professional sports mangers in the state. “I haven’t seen even a single qualified professional manager throughout my playing life and this urged me to opt for the course”. The course is all about managing the event, managing players, teams, venues, associations, marketing of the events, points Majid, adding, the course is designed in such a way that one gets lot of practical exposure.

Majid's career took off when he was given the responsibility of managing the entire event of World Archery Youth Championship at the 9th Asian Games held at Kolkata. Now he has important assignments on his plate including event management in Hockey World Cup qualifying events, Academy management with Tata Institute of Football Academy Jamshedpur. In team management he is going to work with leading football clubs of India like East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mahindra United as a management trainee.

He is also the first and only Kashmiri to have been inducted in the list of officials deputed by All India Football Federation for the Nehru Cup. During his duty as AIFF official for Nehru Cup, he was assigned with the official countdown where he had to make the Indian team ready in time before the match, like dressing, prayers, warm-up and line-up of team. After the match would start he would accompany media personals and provide them technical information of the match like card showing, score, changing, etc.

It was a proud moment for Majid to share time with the members of senior Indian national team. He was also happy to see one of his friends and a regular feature of the Indian team Mehrajuddin Wadoo playing with the Indian side.

Majid attributes his success to his father Mohammad Yusuf Dar who holds the reputation of being the first ever international footballer from Kashmir. He says, “My interest in football grew up seeing my father playing and imparting training to the players some of whom became very renowned”, says Majid, adding, he is my “inspiration” and I am thankful to almighty who has bestowed me with such parents.
Early in his career Majid has had the opportunity of rubbing shoulders with today’s superstar Baichung Bhutia when he was one among the only two boys from Kashmir in 80-member batch who were offered scholarship from Sports Authority of India. The scholarship continued and so did his spirit and passion for the game backed by unconditional family support. “I was the only boy in my category that never had to face any family restrictions”, points Majid, adding, even my father did not stop me from making an important visit to Delhi to play Subroto Cup ahead of my Matriculation Board examination.

Majid feels that the future is bright for sports management in India. In a country like India where cricket is treated as the ultimate sporting entertainment, there remains less room for football and other games. He says, “The biggest market for European football outside Europe is definitely India”. Majid believes that such sports management courses as are being offered by the Tata Institute would create a lot of jobs in the sports industry in the time to come.