(20 May 2006 5:00 pm)

MUMBAI: In an effort to promote football at the grass root levels, ESPN Star Sports (ESS) and adidas will be initiating a nationwide search for four kids from the country to represent India as Fifa Fair Play Flag bearers at the World Cup in Germany 2006.

ESPN Software India Pvt Ltd vice president marketing and sales Sricharan Iyengar said, "The Fifa Fair play flag bearers contest is a unique opportunity for kids in the age group of eight to 13 years, passionate about the game of football, to witness the World Cup live in Germany. As a Fifa Fair Play Flag bearer, the selected kids will get a chance to walk on the pitch with the Fair Play flag and experience the World Cup from the centre of the pitch. The kids will get a chance to stand with their heroes and listen to 60,000 people sing the National anthems of the participating teams."

ESS in partnership with adidas will integrate the nationwide search with "Learning Ground," ESS' on ground school program, among 1200 schools in the country. "We will be looking for kids who have unrelenting passion, immense knowledge and skills of the game. The contest is purely based on puritan values of the participating kids and is in the larger interest of promoting football at the grass root level," he added.

"As the world's No.1 football brand, our passion is to constantly strive to excite the youth through innovative products and extraordinary experiences. We have been actively involved in promoting football at the grassroots level. We are therefore incredibly excited about this nationwide search for youngsters who are football fans and will represent the country at the World Cup. The entire contest will judge participants on their creativity, skill and talent - therefore ultimately leaving us with four of the most passionate football fans in the country. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for any kid and we are certain that this initiative will be received with great support from children across the country," said adidas India managing director Andreas Gellner.

The contest will be a two round selection procedure with the entries invited through SMS, call in and online registration asking the participants to express their love for the game through a slogan.

To register, interested kids can SMS 'Flag' to 6464 from an Airtel mobile phone, to which they will receive a SMS from Airtel explaining the procedure to participate. The call in entries can be made by Airtel landline and mobile subscribers by calling 1286464 or 6464 respectively and saying 'Flag' to follow instructions to register. MTNL and BSNL subscribers can call 1905-180-3776 and kids can also log on to www.espnstar.com and click on the "Fifa Flag bearers Link" to register online.

The short listed candidates from across the country will be invited for the second round, which will be the final selection round. From the short listed participants, four winners would be selected on the basis of a skill and talent based contest.

The four winners will be entitled for an all expense paid, two nights and three days return trip to Germany for watching one match during the Fifa World Cup. The venue, location and date of the match shall be decided by ESPN and adidas.

To build on the pre event hype for the Fifa World Cup, the channel has built extensive on-air Fifa programming to generate viewer interest. The broadcaster had earlier launched "11 Hindustani," a consumer based contest in partnership with Coke to take 11 Indians to watch the World Cup live.

ESS is geared to spread the Fifa fever across India and will be generating interest, providing information and building the popularity through various initiatives of the channel till the World Cup starts 9 June, 2006.