Grassroots football, more young women playing football: BT feature film Goal Goa looks to the future

• BT in partnership with the British Asian Trust and Going to School, launch new feature film to tackle vaccine hesitancy in India and South Asian communities in the UK
• Premier League players including Ederson Santana de Moraes from Manchester City & the Brazil National Team, Fernandinho from Manchester City & the Brazil National Team, Neal Maupay from Brighton & Hove Albion, Thomas Tuchel and César Azpilicueta from Chelsea and Adam Lallana from Brighton FC from the UK send ‘call-outs’ of support to families in India to ‘take the shot!’
• The film will air on national TV in India and BT Sport in the UK in November

BT, in partnership with the British Asian Trust and India-based, creative not-for-profit education trust Going to School, launch ‘Goal Goa: Take the Shot!’ – a new feature film including premier league footballers to encourage families in India and South Asian communities in the UK to get vaccinated.

Set in Goa, the film narrates the stories of young people accessing community football pitches that have been repurposed as vaccination camps. The focus is on how girls and women can play a key role in bringing football back to Goa, inspiring them and everyone to take on the biggest global challenge the country is facing, through sports.

The film features how and why ‘football came to be in every Goan’s blood’ and includes Goa National Women’s Winning team from the 1970s, India’s first woman coach for the women’s national team, the first woman FIFA referee and the first woman FIFA referee to adjudicate an international match. Young girls also talk about what they hope is possible when football re-starts and the world re-opens.

BT Sport players in the UK were recorded during the Super Cup in Belfast in August encouraging people to ‘take the shot!’ which were integrated into the film.

BT currently supports seven NGO partners across Delhi/NCR, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Mumbai through a partnership with the British Asian Trust focusing on bringing digital skills and using technology to improve the health, agency, education of young women.

During the pandemic, reaching young people through communities and government schools have been the main delivery channels for most of these initiatives. However, as many schools have remained closed since March 2020, television has also been the best way to reach rural communities.

The 60-minute feature film will be shown on Indian national television network Doordarshan National on October30th with a build up of two days of 30 minute versions. Goal Goa has the potential to reach 100 million people.

A 53-minute version will air on BT Sport in the UK.

Andy Wales, Chief Digital Impact & Sustainability Officer, at BT said: “As football’s a growing sport in India, this is an incredibly important initiative for BT and BT Sport to be part of to address the very real issue of vaccine hesitancy across the country, as well as South Asian communities in the UK.

BT and the British Asian Trust have already been working together on a number of different innovative tech-based projects in India to empower over 100,000 adolescent girls across the country.”

Lisa Heydlauff, Director, Going to School, said: “Football runs through the blood of every Goan, inspired by the vaccination drive that took place in a football pitch in Candolim, Goal Goa opens the door for a new way for young people to learn the skills they need outside to be able to take on the next challenge of climate change that affects us all.”

India has BT’s largest footprint outside of the UK where there are 10,000 employees working in engineering, software development, shared services, data analytics, testing, customer service, B2B enterprise and cloud solutions and cybersecurity.

About BT

BT Group is the UK’s leading telecommunications and network provider and a leading provider of global communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities in the UK include the provision of fixed voice, mobile, broadband and TV (including Sport) and a range of products and services over converged fixed and mobile networks to consumer, business and public sector customers. For its global customers, BT provides managed services, security and network and IT infrastructure services to support their operations all over the world. BT consists of four customer-facing units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Openreach, which provides access network services to over 650 communications provider customers who sell phone, broadband and Ethernet services to homes and businesses across the UK.

For the year ended 31 March 2021, BT Group’s reported revenue was £21,331m with reported profit before taxation of £1,804m.

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