Standard Chartered kicks off ‘Go Forward’ with Liverpool Football Club

Standard Chartered together with the Liverpool Football Club (LFC) will conduct the inaugural soccer clinic in partnership with the Football Federation of Sri Lanka and ‘Thaarunyata Hetak,’ on 15 September 2012 at the Maligawatte MC Grounds.

The soccer clinics are part of the bank’s ‘Go Forward’ initiative which is its effort to not only provide access to football coaching and opportunity to inner city youth but also to bring financial literacy to the next generation.

Standard Chartered is the sponsor of Liverpool Football Club. Since becoming sponsors in 2010, Standard Chartered has teamed up with LFC to raise awareness and funds for avoidable blindness and visual impairment – joining forces on everything from global soccer clinics to half time activities involving visually impaired young people.

“The bank’s ‘Go Forward’ initiative together with LFC, in Sri Lanka, will aim to reach out to 1000 of Colombo’s inner city youth between the ages of eight to 15 years within one year. The initiative’s objectives are to popularize the game of football and identify potential talent, and to empower/educate the youth on financial literacy. Liverpool Football Club has committed to fly down coaches later this year for a soccer clinic - an opportunity for the youth to learn, and demonstrate their talent,” said Anirvan Ghosh Dastidar, CEO, Standard Chartered Bank.  

The ‘Go Forward’ initiative aims to conduct special coaching camps in six inner city venues. Its ultimate aim is to identify and select a team representing the top talent from within this group and to this end soccer matches will be played on a round robin basis and two final teams will be selected. The best of these players – the Sri Lanka Go Forward Team – will thereafter play matches against school and club teams.

Standard Chartered is a leading international banking group. It has operated for over 150 years in some of the world’s most dynamic markets and earns more than 90 per cent of its profits in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.