Too Little:

There are far too few British-Asian footballers playing professional football, let alone in the top leagues in Britain. Michael Chopra is the most successful of the current crop. He was the first to play in the Premier League and score in it – European football too – while with Newcastle United. He currently plays for Cardiff City and is their most expensive player at £3m.

Meanwhile, Zesh Rehman soon followed him, playing for Fulham before joining Bradford City, which made him the first British-Asian player to ply his trade in all four divisions. He is also the first Pakistani international to play in England, despite having been born here and representing England at youth level. So has football done enough to bring Asian talent through?

“I don’t know if it’s done enough,” Chopra told us. “You’ve got a lot of clubs trying to step it up now. I notice a couple of months ago Chelsea were talking about something like that as well. I think West Ham have been doing a lot in the Asian community as well. I think there are a couple of clubs going over to India to try to help it out and progress it. I think that’s what it needs really just a little push forward now and I think once you see a few more players like myself that are coming through, I think there’ll be a lot more chomping at the bit.”

Groundbreaking Scheme:

We were determined to assist in that process. Last year we organised the first Empower-Sport Asian trials with Tottenham Hotspur. The Assistant Director of their Academy and Under-16 coach Chris Ramsey took the trial of sixteen British-Asian boys himself. He was impressed with the scheme and wants more.

Empower-Sport Limited organised access to top coaching and training. Junior Lawrence was the Head Coach. His organisation, Free-Way Coaching continues to work with Empower-Sport Limited. Ramsey invited four of the boys back for an another look – a considerable achievement as none of them had the benefit of coaching and preparation at an academy or centre of excellence previously.

Ramsey released them in March as he could not offer them a scholarship, but wanted them to succeed, so further opportunities were provided for them at Wycombe Wanderers by Empower-Sport Limited. Shaber Gulmohammed, Arjun Jung and Harjot Samra had their second chance on March 8^th and 9^th.

“You’ve got something,” their Head of Youth, Richard Dobson told Samra. “You are willing to pass the ball. Tactically, you’ve got much to learn, but we owe it to you to try to take it further.” Samra was invited back and has taken part in training and played for the Under-16 team after impressing Dobson. So what does the top British-Asian footballer think of our scheme?

Chopra’s Wish:

Chopra was very enthusiastic about our initiative when he heard about it and fully supports it. “You’ve got to take every opportunity,” he says. “If there’s a little bit of help like what you guys have done, that’s brilliant in football. That’s brilliant that you are trying to get Asians into football.”

He believes that our idea is necessary and will bring British-Asians into football. “I think that could be done all over the country,” said Chopra. “If kids have got a chance of being a professional footballer and getting a chance for trials at football clubs then people will be jumping at it. It’s a brilliant idea and it’s obviously good that they’ve been getting coaching.”

So how good an idea does he think the Empower-Sport Trials could be? “I think if there’s more people focussing on that point – trying to get players to play football at a young age – then I think it could help,” he said. “You’ve got a chance of bringing a good Asian player through and making ten, fifteen million for them, if he’s  good enough. You look at every club and I think give it five years and every club will probably do that.”

Would he like to see his own club Cardiff City involved in one of our projects? “I think it would be brilliant,” he said.