‘Why Indian women could play football World Cup before men’
Aditi Chauhan Meet Aditi Chauhan. India goalkeeper and first woman to play in the English football league. Current job: World Cup TV expert Poll Vote
Aditi Chauhan Meet Aditi Chauhan. India goalkeeper and first woman to play in the English football league. Current job: World Cup TV expert Poll Vote & Share your view What do you think is the most challenging aspect of pursuing a career in women's football in India? Lack of financial support Limited opportunities Cultural barriers Coaching quality 3k+ users shared opinion today 5k+ users already voted today 3k+ users shared opinion today Share Opinion Sports was part of Aditi Chauhan’s DNA. Her father, then part of the Prime Minister’s Special Protection Group, played tennis, and her brother trained in taekwondo. She kicked and punched to a black belt in karate. Jackie Chan movies was a father-daughter favourite. Football wasn’t her preferred sport.Aditi relished basketball, a sport demanding razor-sharp hand-eye coordination, agility and fitness. Until her basketball coach spotting these talents suggested a radical change: go for under-19 Delhi trials as a goalkeeper. “I neither knew the rules nor the technique. But with luck, I was selected as a third choice keeper,” she says.Twenty years later, Aditi can look back at her resume with satisfaction. She has been India’s no 1 goalkeeper and the first Indian footballer to play in the English women’s league in 2015. The same year she was named Woman Footballer of the Year at the Asian Football Awards. She is the only female footballer on Zee5’s expert panel in the ongoing World Cup. “I enjoy the role and the responsibility of presenting a good image of women footballers,” says Aditi, 33, who has played 57 times for India.Mentored by coach Ramesh Kumar Kanojia, her rise was sharp.
By the time she was in Class XI in Saket’s Amity International, Aditi was a part of India’s under-19 team in 2009. Soon, she was playing for the senior side helping India win South Asian championships. She remembers blunting Nepal’s feared striker, Sabitra Bhandari “Samba” to win one of the games.Yet challenges loomed ahead. Football gave her joy, identity and a sense of self-hood. But a professional women’s league wasn’t even an idea then. Could football be a sustaining career in India? For someone who had graduated in commerce from Jesus and Mary College and already enrolled for a master’s at the prestigious SRCC, it was a difficult choice. “I wanted to do something that made me happy, kept me connected to sports,” she says.During a university team trip to New Zealand, Aditi found the answer: sports management. Enrolment at London’s Loughborough University in 2013 opened up new vistas. After completing MSc in sports management, the goalie was interning with Decathlon when she went for trials to Millwall, the south-east London football club. “But I was on a student’s visa and wasn’t eligible to play for first and second division clubs. Millwall was in the second tier then. But their goalkeeping coach liked me and suggested I should try West Ham,” she says. West Ham Ladies (now West Ham United Women) was in the third division then.The Chennai-born keeper got drafted. With EPL games telecast live, West Ham was a familiar club in India. The selection made news, brought her name to focus.
The BriefWire