IFSA Indo French Sports Association

02/10/2026

IFSA at UNESCO: on the road to Dakar 2026 🇮🇳🇫🇷🇸🇳

On 30 September, IFSA joined UNESCO in Paris to celebrate the road to Dakar 2026, the first Olympic event ever held in Africa. We met Philipp Müller-Wirth, Chief of UNESCO's Sport Section, to discuss bringing the Fit for Life programme to young people across India.

🇫🇷 Le 30 septembre, l'IFSA était à l'UNESCO à Paris pour célébrer la route vers Dakar 2026, premier événement olympique de l'histoire en Afrique. Nous avons rencontré Philipp Müller-Wirth, Chef de la Section du Sport de l'UNESCO, pour parler de l'arrivée du programme Fit for Life auprès des jeunes en Inde.

Thank you UNESCO for welcoming us, and good luck to every young athlete heading to Dakar 2026 with the Olympics movement 🌍

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02/10/2026

Gandhi Jayanti 2026: what sport can learn from Mahatma Gandhi 🇮🇳🇫🇷

On 2 October, the International Day of Non-Violence, we remember a man who walked 387 km for freedom, founded a football club in South Africa to spread non-violence, and showed that true strength comes from an indomitable will. Sport carries the same values: discipline, respect and peace between nations.

🇫🇷 Le 2 octobre, nous rendons hommage au Mahatma Gandhi : l'homme qui a marché 387 km pour la liberté, fondé un club de football pour diffuser la non-violence, et montré que la vraie force vient d'une volonté indomptable.

With India in France (Embassy of India, Paris) and French Embassy in India / Ambassade de France en Inde, we celebrate the values that bring India and France together through sport.

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24/09/2026

Papa went from « focus on studies 📚 » to « SEND LINK NOW » real quick 😭🇫🇷

2 weeks in LYON training with Olympique Lyonnais Academy coaches ⚽ Pro assessment, a written report and matches vs French teams.
📅 23 Nov – 5 Dec 2026 · Ages 15–18 · Boys & girls

Only 25 places. While your family debates, someone else takes your seat 👀
Apply by 10 Oct · 📩 [email protected] | 📞 +91 721 760 5916 | DM for fees
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Flights & visa not included.

Relatable FootballReels DesiMemes

17/08/2026

Paris had seven years. Amdavad has four. The famous Paris 2024 number — 95% of venues already existing or temporary — wasn't won in 2024. It was written into the bid book in 2017, before the vote. What's worth copying isn't what Paris built. It's when Paris decided. The flag came to Amdavad on Sunday. The clock started with it.

The Commonwealth Games flag passed to Amdavad on Sunday night. Paris had seven years to become Paris — and had already made its defining decision before the vote. India has four.

17/08/2026

India has its first Commonwealth Games para-athletics gold. Sharmila Dhankar threw 9.81m in Glasgow — having taken up shot put at 34, after polio, after leaving an abusive marriage, after her family sold their house to fund the travel. The story isn't the courage — it's the design flaw: talent identification built around 14-year-olds structurally misses para sport. Paris 2024's record 45% women's participation shows what the machinery looks like when it's built.

In Glasgow on 27 July, Sharmila Dhankar threw 9.81m and became the first Indian para-athlete to win a Commonwealth Games athletics title. She had picked up a shot put for the first time only six years earlier. Her story is not only about courage. It is about who a sporting system bothers to look for...

17/08/2026

Mbappé came from Bondy, not from money. What built him was a ladder — local clubs, base-level coaches, a pathway that finds a talented child regardless of what the family can pay. India can build one too, and it's the method IFSA carries via OL, LOSC and the IFFT.

The best footballer of his generation came from a crowded pitch in a working-class Paris suburb, not from wealth. How France turns a neighbourhood into a talent pipeline is a lesson India can borrow — and a bridge IFSA is already building.

17/08/2026

From FY27, sport is a notified CPSE CSR theme — a two-year window of public-sector money looking for credible projects. Our take: fund the pathway, not the photo.

A quiet policy change opened a two-year window of public-sector CSR money for Indian sport. The easy way to spend it buys optics. The high-return way buys method — and that is exactly what the France–India bridge exists to carry.

17/08/2026

India's first medal in Glasgow came from a Bihar para-powerlifter who drove — then sold — an e-rickshaw to compete. His grit got him there alone. We look at the Franco-Indian para pathway (Para Élan, IFI+PCI) that should build the road so the next athlete isn't.

India's first medal of the Glasgow Games came not from a star, but from a para-powerlifter from a Bihar village who drove an e-rickshaw to survive. His grit got him there alone. The point of the France–India bridge is to make sure the next one isn't alone.

17/08/2026

79 years ago, India got the freedom to build its own next chapter. This year, in sport, here's what we actually built with one partner: a signed basketball pathway, a football student-athlete route, an active para-sport pipeline, and the first Indian woman ever at the Tour de France. Not a flag post. A progress report.

Every Independence Day gets a flag, a speech, a scroll of achievements. This year we could write that post too. Instead, here's a harder and more useful one: not what India has achieved alone, but what it has built, this year, with one specific partner.