For years, the Premier League’s India engagement was most visibly associated with youth football — bringing academy teams to compete against Indian youngsters and offering a taste of elite football environments. But the League’s latest evolution signals a more structural ambition: developing the people who shape the game at the grassroots.The Premier League’s Next Gen Programme, which began as a youth tournament, has now expanded into coach education, with the Next Gen Coach Programme in Goa marking its latest intervention. Building on its Community Coach Development Programme in Mumbai last year, the League is betting on a simple premise — that empowering one coach can create ripple effects across hundreds of young players.For Hrishikesh Shende, the English Premier League India’s Managing Director, the shift is as much about scale as it is about sustainability. After nearly two decades of grassroots work in India, the EPL now sees local coaches — not one-off training sessions — as the most effective way to leave a lasting footprint.Excerpts:Q. Why are you doing coaching plans at the grassroots level? I mean, you started out with youngsters, and now you are coaching both. Where did this entire process begin and what was the thought behind it?Shende: Yeah, good question. So, exactly as you said, Next Gen started out as a grassroots tournament.But now what we have done is essentially the Next Gen Coach is basically an amalgamation of three programmes that we ran previously, which were Primary Stars, Premier Skills and the Community Coach Development. So, the lessons and learnings from all these three programmes that we have executed in India over the last 18-20 years have now filtered through into this iteration, which is the Next Gen Coach. So, it is a far more refined version of what we want to do in terms of uplifting and empowering grassroots coaches in India.Why coaches versus competitive action? That is a very nuanced question. And again, it boils down to scale. Ultimately, as the Premier League, it is very challenging for us to constantly keep flying in coaches from abroad and scaling that. Doing individual sessions with kids alone can only give you that much. Whereas if you work on the coaches who are working locally with hundreds and thousands of kids, that gives you far more scale with a lot of impact.
The PL Next Gen Coach programme was held from 10th to 13 May in Goa. (Photo: English Premier League India)
So, that is the reason why we fundamentally made a switch to focusing on coach development and grassroots because it allows us to do two things. One, we anyway want to work and uplift Indian coaches and the way they communicate and impart lessons and sessions to these kids and improve their standards. And secondly, it allows us to scale far better.So, we can have greater impact on hundreds and thousands of kids through the coaches.Q. How are these coaches selected? How does the process work?Shende: So, essentially, we work with partners, right? So, in this case, we are working with the OSCAR Foundation. So, the OSCAR programme has coaches and they recommend who are the right coaches who will benefit from these sorts of sessions.So, one is the local partnerships that we strike plus certain other partnerships that we have. Apart from the Next Gen Coach, we also have the Dream Sports Championship that we partnered with recently, or are supporting.So, in Dream Sports, essentially, our five elite coaches worked with the top youth academies at Premier League clubs. They came over here and had a lot of sessions with the top 16 academy coaches from India who had qualified for the DSE Championships in Goa, which is taking place as we speak.So, in a sense, they are self-selected because their teams qualified automatically. Those coaches have the opportunity to benefit from the Premier League coaches.
Premier League India had organised a Community Coach Development Programme in Mumbai in October 2025. (Photo: English Premier League India)
Q. Which cities will host these sessions?Shende: So, this one currently is in Goa. What we are also looking to do is try and make it more inclusive. And we want to take this programme now to multiple cities. We had an activation in Mumbai in October.Now we’re doing this in Goa. And the plan is to obviously increase our geographic footprint in the country. But we need to do it in a responsible manner as well.So, we’re putting those plans in place as we speak to increase our footprint in India.Q. What is the number that you’re looking at in terms of how many coaches you want to work with or develop? And more importantly, how do you define what is the successful number?Shende: So, I think scale is something that we’re looking at based on the objectives that we’re driving.Ultimately, over the last 18-20 years or so, we’ve had a positive impact on about 7,300 coaches, referees and educators, which has had a positive impact on 1,25,000 kids. Now, what we want to do is obviously try and improve that number.I think for a country like India, even 10,000 coaches or 15,000 coaches would still be small. How quickly can we get to that scale is something we have to think about. That’s why these are all attempts at fine-tuning our process, methodology and also seeing what the impact is for the market.If we’re seeing a lot of demand and coaches are generally benefiting from these sessions and workshops, then we obviously want to scale this very quickly.So, we don’t have a set number in mind to answer your question. I think it’s more dependent on how we are going to scale this, how effectively we can scale this, and what the impact is. So, the focus is on quality rather than quantity.
The 2026 edition has convened 30+ OSCAR Foundation coaches, supported by two Premier League Community Coaches and two Indian Alumni Coaches. (Photo: English Premier League India)
Q. You opened your office last year in India. But the presence has been there for a very long time. Could you reflect on this journey and learnings?Shende: The Premier League has been operating in India for the last 18 years. Across about 18 states, we’ve conducted activations at the grassroots level.What we want to do now, with the office here and having boots on the ground, with a team and everything in place, is obviously show up more consistently and more frequently, and take a hands-on approach through the season rather than shipping in and shipping out every six months or every year.That’s the fundamental objective. India is a key strategic market for the League itself.As part of that long-term commitment to the market, we want to bring our fans closer to the League as well. We want to make the League far more accessible to Indian fans.So, we work very closely with our broadcast partner to ensure the broadcast experience is seamless and find ways to activate in order to let our fans come and experience the pure joy, passion and tribalism of the Premier League.So, the fan engagement piece, fan development piece, is a big one for us in addition to grassroots.I would say the third leg to this whole thing is about football development. And that’s where strategic partnerships with key stakeholders in Indian football are going to be very fundamental.The first of which we already announced with the Dream Sports Championship.We want to genuinely play a role in uplifting Indian football and whatever help and support we can give to the Indian football ecosystem through the learnings and methodologies of the Premier League, we want to be able to share that.
