Rajinikanth Lauds His Fan For Opening A Football Academy In Tamil Nadu

Rajinikanth, apart from being a central figure in the Tamil film industry, holds a significant passion for sports. The 72-year-old is often spotted spending quality time with members of the sports fraternity, especially cricket. Rajinikanth jetted off to Mumbai to catch the first ODI match between India and Australia, held at Wankhede Stadium on March 17. Rajinikanth also seems to be an ardent follower of football. Recently, when one of his America-based fans opened a football academy in Tamil Nadu, Rajinikanth congratulated the fan.

Rajinikanth fan pages are abuzz with the news of the new football academy opening in Tamil Nadu’s Mamallapuram. One of his fan pages has shared the latest pictures of the new institute, inaugurated by FC Madras. The tweet of the same shares details of the new football academy. It reads, “A new world-class Football Academy in Chennai. FC Madras is set to inaugurate their new 23 acres football centre in Mamallapuram. The facility includes floodlight football pitches, a strength and conditioning centre, a medical centre, a multi-sport arena, and more!”

In the now-deleted Twitter video, Rajinikanth extended his heartfelt congratulations to the man responsible for taking up the initiative to open the football academy. Speaking about it, Rajinikanth revealed, “I am very happy to have a world-class youth football academy in Tamil Nadu. It is called the king of games. It was once popular in India. Then came cricket and dominated it. Now it is being played more in Kolkata and Kerala.”

Calling football a “heroic game”, Rajinikanth lamented the fact that despite small countries playing football with much zest and enthusiasm, lesser names are getting registered for football matches in India. “Thus the Youth Football Academy is worth welcoming. This academy should give a Messi and a Ronaldo from Chennai,” he hoped.

Rajinikanth is presently busy shooting for his upcoming film with director TJ Gnanavel, tentatively titled Thalaivar 170, bankrolled by Lyca Productions. Rajinikanth is also geared up for the release of filmmaker Nelson Dilipkumar’s Tamil-language action comedy, Jailer. The film also boasts an ensemble cast of Ramya Krishnan, Yogi Babu, Shivarajkumar, Tamannaah Bhatia, Mohanlal and Jackie Shroff. Jailer is slated to hit the big screens on April 14.

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