for years, Premier LeagueIndia’s engagement was most obviously associated with youth football – bringing in academy teams to compete against Indian youth and offering a taste of the atmosphere of elite football. But the league’s latest evolution signals a more structural ambition: the development of the people shaping the game at the grassroots level.The Premier League’s Next Gen programme, which started as a youth tournament, has now expanded into coach education, with the Next Gen Coach Program in Goa marking its latest intervention. Based on its Community Coach Development Program in Mumbai last year, the league is betting on a simple premise – that empowering one coach can have an impact on hundreds of young players.For Harish Kesh Shinde, managing director of the English Premier League India, change is as much about scale as sustainability. After nearly two decades of grassroots operations in India, the EPL now sees local coaches – not one-off training sessions – as the most effective way to leave a lasting impression.Quotes:Q. Why are you doing grassroots coaching projects? I mean, you started with the youngsters, and now you’re coaching both. Where did this whole process start and what was the thought behind it?Shenday: Yes, good question. So, exactly as you said, Next Gen started as a grassroots tournament.But what we’ve done now is basically Next Gen Coach is basically a combination of three programs that we used to run, which were Primary Stars, Premier Skills and Community Coach Development. So, the lessons and learnings from these three programs that we have done in India over the last 18-20 years have now filtered into this iteration, which is Next Gen Coach. So, this is a much better version of what we want to do in terms of developing and empowering grassroots coaches in India.Why Coaches vs Competitive Action? This is a very delicate question. And then, it boils down to scale. Ultimately, as the Premier League, it’s very difficult for us to constantly fly in coaches from overseas and scale. Doing individual sessions with children alone can give you just that. Whereas if you work with coaches who are working with hundreds and thousands of kids locally, it gives you a lot more scale with a lot more impact.
The PL Next Gen Coach Program was held in Goa from May 10 to 13. (Photo: English Premier League India)
So, that’s why we turned to focus primarily on coach development and grassroots because it allows us to do two things. One, we want to work and develop the Indian coaches anyway and improve the quality of the way they communicate and give lessons and sessions to these kids. And second, it allows us to scale much better.So, we can have a greater impact on hundreds and thousands of kids through coaches.Q: How are these coaches selected? How does the process work?Shenday: So, basically, we work with partners, right? So, in this case, we are working with the OSCAR Foundation. So, the OSCAR program has coaches and suggests who are the right coaches who will benefit from these types of sessions.So, one is the local partnerships that we attack and some other partnerships that we have. In addition to Next Gen Coach, we also have the Dream Sports Championship that we recently partnered with, or are supporting.So, at Dream Sports, essentially, five of our elite coaches worked with top youth academies at Premier League clubs. He came here and had a lot of sessions with the top 16 academy coaches in India who qualified for the DSE Championship in Goa, which is happening as we speak.So, in a sense, they are self-selected as their teams qualify automatically. These coaches have the opportunity to benefit from the Premier League coaches.
Premier League India organized Community Coach Development Program in Mumbai in October 2025. (Photo: English Premier League India)
Question Which cities will host these sessions?Shenday: So, it is currently in Goa. What we are trying to do is make it more inclusive. And we want to take this program to multiple cities now. We had our activation in Mumbai in October.Now we are doing it in Goa. And the plan is obviously to expand our geographical footprint in the country. But we also need to do it responsibly.So, we are putting these plans in place as we talk about expanding our footprint in India.Q. What’s the number 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 a successful number is?Shenday: 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, we have had a positive impact on around 7,300 coaches, referees and educators, which has had a positive impact on 1,25,000 children. Now, what we want to do is obviously try to improve that number.I think 10,000 coaches or even 15,000 coaches would be small for a country like India. We have to think about how quickly we can get to that scale. So all these efforts are efforts to fix our processes, procedures and also to see what the impact is on the market.If we’re seeing a lot of demand and coaches are generally benefiting from these sessions and workshops, then obviously we want to scale it up very quickly.So, we don’t have a set number in mind to answer your question. I think it depends more on how we’re going to scale it, how effectively we can scale it, and what the impact is. Hence, the focus is on quality rather than quantity.
The 2026 edition has invited 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 in India last year. But the presence has been there for a long time. Can you consider this journey and learning?Shenday: The Premier League has been running in India for the past 18 years. In about 18 states, we have done grassroots activities.What we want to do now, with the office here and boots on the ground, with a team and with everything in place, obviously show up more consistently and more often, and take a hands-on approach during the season instead of sending in and sending out every six months or every year.This is the main purpose. India itself is an important strategic market for the league.As part of this long-term commitment to the market, we also want to bring our fans closer to the league. We want to make the league much more accessible to Indian fans.Therefore, we work very closely with our broadcast partner to ensure that the broadcast experience is seamless and find ways to enable our fans to experience the pure joy, passion and tribalism of the Premier League.So, the fan engagement piece, the fan development piece, is huge for us, besides the grassroots.I would say that the third phase of this whole thing is about football development. And this is where strategic partnerships with key stakeholders in Indian football are going to be very fundamental.The first of which we have already announced with the Dream Sports Championship.We want to truly play our part in the development of Indian football and be able to share whatever support and assistance we can give to the Indian football ecosystem through the learnings and methodologies of the Premier League.
