Shifting the goalpost: Ananya Kamboj spreads awareness through football

(February 4, 2023) “Man up!” Footballer Ananya Kamboj would bristle everytime her coaches hurled the phrase at the girls’ team. Were they implying that girls are inferior, she would wonder. Kamboj, the first Indian to be selected at the FIFA U17 global Football for Friendship (F4F) in 2017, decided veiled prejudice would not be taken in her stride. Today, she’s an author, a goodwill ambassador for BRICS and addressed the United Nation’s ECOSOC Youth Forum in September 2020. Now 17 years old, Ananya is part of various projects for gender equality, including Girls with Impact, Girl Up, Learn in India, She Mercedes and SDGs For Children. She has also been part of three Guinness World Record events, including most nationalities in a football training session in history (2019, the most users in a football video hangout (2020) and the most visitors at a virtual stadium (2021).

For three years after her selection, the young Global Indian continued to represent India as a young journalist at the F4F, a programme aimed to unite children of different physical abilities from around the world. “The goal is the development of children’s football, fostering tolerance and respect for different cultures and nationalities,” she says. “The key values that the participants support and promote are friendship, equality, fairness, health, peace, devotion, victory, traditions and honour.”

 

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The debutante author

When she returned from the Football for Friendship programme in Russia in 2017, her father suggested she write her memoirs. By this time, the teenager had a strong value system in place and was determined to work for equality within the sporting ecosystem around the world. That led to her debut book, ‘My Journey from Mohali to St Petersburg’, in which she shares the lessons she has learned. “If you are looking at famous sports professionals, don’t look at the records they break or the games they win; instead, try to learn some valuable lessons from their approach and their lives too,” she writes in her book.

Born in Mohali, Chandigarh, the first turning point in the young changemaker’s life came in April 2017, when she happened to spot a FIFA U17 World Cup poster on her way to the bank in her neighbourhood. The poster announced a contest for young journalists, asking students to report on the Gazprom’s Football for Friendship Championship in Russia. Applicants were asked to write an inspiring story on football, in under 200 words. That year also happened to mark India’s first time participating in a FIFA World Cup and Ananya decided to give the contest a shot.

Incidentally, one month earlier, Ananya Kamboj, a footballer herself, had met Gurmangal Dass Soni, founder of the Youth Football Club at Lake Club, Chandigarh. “Soni is involved in a global campaign to stem out the increasing use of drugs among the youth in Rurka Kalan and surrounding areas. I found Mr Soni’s story fascinating and inspiring. He is an ordinary person who has done extraordinary things,” she writes. She knew that his story was the one she wanted to tell.

Leading herself to lead others

Her goal, she admits, was only to participate. When she got the call telling her she was the winner, Ananya was “completely surprised.” She would be one of 64 participants to go to St Petersburg, Russia, for the social program sponsored by FIFA and Gazprom. In the meantime, she was also trained by Ranjit Bajaj, the owner, founder and executive director of Minerva Punjab Football Club, where she was provided leadership and motivational training.

Once quick-tempered and by her own admission, “prone to losing control when angry,” the first lesson Ananya learned on her path to leadership was to rein in her own emotions. Also a shy person by nature, she learned to face up to her playground bullies, stand by her teammates and grow as a writer.”

Rendezvous with Russia

 

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A twenty-three hour journey later, Ananya stepped out into the biting cold of a rainy day in St Petersburgh, where she was welcomed by the F4F team, who told her, to her alarm, that this was summertime. “The warm, cramped streets of Mohali were left far behind,” she writes. This was her first time so far away from home and she was nervous as she met her fellow Ambassadors from Armenia, Venezuela, Pakistan, Iceland, Slovenia, South Africa and South Korea. Ananya was making history that day – she was the first Indian to participate in FIFA U17 F4F.

For the next three days, Ananya Kamboj learned what it meant to be part of a team, braving the cold to spend hours out on the field. The ‘Yellow Team’, of which she was a part, made it all the way to the semi-finals, where they lost 4-3 to the Orange Team, who went  on to win the championship. “Sports teaches us to take both defeat and victory. We eventually shook off our understandable disappointment,” she says. She was also there as a reporter and contributed a number of articles for the daily F4F Newsletter and anchored the Football for Friendship video digest.

“The journey brought about a positive transformation, instilling confidence in me – the confidence to address a crowd over 1,200 people as one of the keynote speakers of the programme,” she recalls. “I kept the Indian flag flying high at the F4F Social Programme at St Petersburg.”

In 2018, she was invited to hold the world premiere of her book in Moscow. The book was released by Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Gazprom Board of Directors as part of the 6th Season of the F4F. She was also awarded the best young journalist award for her efforts.

Ananya Kamboj is the first Indian to participate in the FIFA U17 F4F programme

United Nations – and Guinness

In 2019 and again in 2020, Ananya was invited by ECOSOC Youth, to speak at the Youth Plenary in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the UN. The idea was to offer a platform for youth to engage with Member Nations, advocate the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and the Paris Agreement.

At the same, she participated in three Guinness World Record Events. “I feel proud, honoured and happy to have achieved something that on the one hand is rather rare, but on the other is simply the result of my passion for football as something that makes me whole,” Ananya told the Hindustan Times.

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