Phillip Zimmerman, technical development services programme manager, and Roma Khanna, tournament director, FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup that will be held in India in 2020, attended the MGCM Chava League at Dr BR Ambedkar Municipal School here to initiate the FIFA Football for Schools Programme in India.

FIFA Football for Schools Programme aims to make the sport more accessible to children around the world by incorporating football activities into the physical education curriculum (or as an extracurricular pursuit), thereby contributing to the education, development and empowerment of children.

"The programme is using football for development and teaching essential life skills as well. Footballs will be distributed all around the world, but we will distribute them in a way that the biggest country gets the most quantity of balls. We're already looking at over 2.2 million balls coming to India. Maharashtra being a bigger state will get a large amount," said Zimmerman.

"We will work on a structure on how we phase the programme. We also know that interaction with local authorities is needed. We will work closely with the state governments and sports and education departments to ensure that we provide these footballs where they're most needed," said Khanna.