SAHIL RASGOTRA
Leh: “Bringing climate action and community building to the field!”. This is the twitter bio of 1 Ladakh FC, the union territory’s first professional football club which has its eyes set on not only setting the field on fire, but also to contribute in and carry forward the cold desert’s march towards becoming a Carbon-neutral region.
Ladakh’s tryst with football goes long back in time, but it was only in the last winter, that it got a chance to exhibit the love for the game in the field. In their first outing after Ladakh Football Association received the affiliation from the All India Football Association, Ladakh held Uttarakhand back to put out a 2-2 draw in the Santosh Trophy in the month of December.
Three month later, 1 Ladakh FC came into existence, with the aim of becoming the cleanest and greenest club in the country, thus showing the way to the other clubs across India.
And how do they plan to achieve that?
The players of the club has got their hands on an ‘eco-friendly’ kit. Imported from outside, which will have a dry-dye concept with zero water consumption and zero waste-water discharges.
This, the club claims, will reduce energy consumption by 50 per cent.
This is not all, though! The club has set a number of rules in its green initiatives.
The players as well as the staff of the club will be cycling their way from the hotels to the their training ground in Leh. Their football stadium is the highest-altitude stadium in the entire country, situated at a height of over 11,000 feet above the sea level. While this may seem a little harsh on the players, it is apparently a very crucial step towards its larger goals.
The club has adopted a Zero Plastic policy, under which all the players will carry water in their own customised aluminium water bottles, while the players are bound by contracts to volunteer their services in initiatives such as cleaning rivulets and community awareness programs across the union territory of Ladakh.
“Steps like these will form a very important stepping stone in our plan to become the cleanest and greenest club in India, with a target to attain Net Zero Carbon by 2025,” said the club on Twitter.
Even the logo of the club represents its goal of sustainability.
“The goal is to set an example for other clubs across the country as well,” Ladakh Football Association general secretary T Angmo said at the launch of the club earlier this week.
Angmo informed that ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India has joined the sustainability cause as the chief sponsor, while Danish brand Hummel has taken the role of ‘eco-friendly’ kit sponsor.
Setting a month-long timeline for becoming operational, the club hopes to participate in the Reliance Developmental League next season.
But for now, the club is preparing for the Leh District Football League in May as well as the inaugural Ladakh Football League expected in the year 2023.
Ladakh and Ladakhis always had a special place in their hearts for Football, and ever since the affiliation of Ladakh Football Association, there have been close to three dozen clubs that have come up in the union territory.
With Ladakh at the focus of climate change debate, the green initiative is surely going to draw eyeballs from the world over. We are all going to witness it all.
