Capri Sports Launches Nova Sports to Build a New Pathway for Girls’ Football in India

Capri Sports has launched Nova Sports, a girls-only football development initiative aimed at creating a structured pathway for young Indian footballers from grassroots participation to elite player development.

Built exclusively around the needs of girls, the initiative will initially target players between the ages of 8 and 18, combining coaching, competitive opportunities and long-term development within an integrated football ecosystem.

The first major step will come through the SuperNova Football Championship, a seven-a-side schools tournament scheduled for September 5 and 6 at Depot18 in Bengaluru. The competition will feature the U13, U15 and U17 age groups and is expected to bring together nearly 50 teams from across the city.

For Capri Sports, however, the tournament is intended to be more than a conventional school football competition.

The championship has been designed to provide players, schools, families and coaches with a professional matchday experience while encouraging greater participation in girls’ football. Alongside competitive matches, the event will feature engagement zones, recognition awards, interactive brand experiences and opportunities for players to create and share content around their participation.

The tournament will also serve as an entry point into the Nova Football Academy, a grassroots programme designed to identify, nurture and develop young footballers through regular coaching and competitive exposure.

Nova Sports has been built around the philosophy “Girls first. Always.” Capri Sports says the programme has been developed specifically for girls rather than adapting an existing boys’ football structure.

That approach extends across the initiative’s coaching methodologies, curriculum, safeguarding standards, technology platform and competition structure.

The objective is to address one of the key challenges facing the growth of women’s football: creating a consistent pathway between a girl’s first experience of the sport and opportunities to compete at higher levels. By connecting schools, academies and structured competitions, Nova Sports aims to provide young players with regular opportunities to train, compete and progress.

The programme will combine two interconnected pathways. The first will focus on player development through grassroots academies, coach education and internationally benchmarked training standards. The second will establish a structured competitive system, providing players with regular match exposure and opportunities to test their development.

Together, these components are intended to create a clearer progression route for girls who want to pursue football seriously.

To help deliver and scale Nova Sports, Capri Sports has partnered with India On Track (IOT) as the initiative’s execution partner. IOT has experience in grassroots sports development and has worked with global and Indian sports rights holders and brands, including the NBA, Premier League, LaLiga, MLB, Gujarat Titans, Apollo Tyres, Coca-Cola and Heineken.

The partnership is expected to support the implementation of Nova Sports at the grassroots level while helping establish the systems required for the programme to expand beyond Bengaluru.

The long-term ambition is significant. Capri Sports wants to take Nova Sports from a single-city initiative to a national programme over the next decade, with a stated goal of reaching more than 1.5 million girls.

Achieving that target would require the programme to move beyond tournament participation and build a broader ecosystem involving players, coaches, schools, academies and competitions.

Jinisha Sharma, Director & Promoter, Capri Sports, said the initiative reflects the organisation’s broader focus on investing in women’s sport and building stronger grassroots systems. “Building the future of Indian sport starts with investing in strong grassroots ecosystems and creating opportunities early,” Sharma said.

She added that Capri Sports sees women’s sport as one of India’s major opportunities for growth, with Nova Sports intended to give more girls access to coaching, competition and support.

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Apurv Gupta, Director, Contact Sports, Capri Sports, said the objective is to create a connected football pathway covering every stage of a girl’s development. “Our vision is to build a cohesive and interconnected football pathway for girls at every stage of their journey,” Gupta said.

He emphasised that the programme would consider player development, ambitions and wellbeing while attempting to create an environment where girls can play, progress and reach their potential. The broader ambition also extends beyond football performance. Capri Sports believes participation can help develop confidence, resilience and opportunities for young athletes.

For Indian women’s football, the significance of initiatives such as Nova Sports will ultimately depend on their ability to sustain participation and create genuine progression opportunities. A tournament can introduce girls to competitive football, but a long-term ecosystem can keep them in the sport and provide the coaching and competition required to advance.

With the SuperNova Football Championship set to begin the programme in Bengaluru, Nova Sports is taking its first step towards that larger objective.

The challenge now is to turn that first step into a national pathway one that gives millions of Indian girls a meaningful opportunity to play, compete and build a future through football.