Background
He was born in Delhi, and attended school at Street Columbus in New Delhi and Delhi University.
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Eric Benny
Edit ProfileCareer
He worked as a football player, coach and manager for both I – League club, Indian Arrows and the Indian National team Benny started his career early, representing the Delhi State in 1992. He played in the senior level while continuing his academics.
Playing career
In 1996 Benny started his professional career at the National and club level
He spent a year playing at professional outfit Salgaocar F.C. During this stint, he was selected to play for the Indian National Team.
A career-ending injury took him out the following year and he had to retire. In 1999, Benny began working with Fortune 500 organisations such as Citibank, International Business Machines Corporation, National Institute of Information Technology, SkyCom, Convergys and EXL. He spent 11 years working under a corporate structure. Managerial career
In 2010, Benny moved to an administrative role as the General Manager of the I-League club, Indian Arrows (now Pailan Arrows) which was then the Indian U-23 Olympic squad as a professional outfit.
Later that year, he managed the Indian national team and took them to the Asian games at Guanzhou and the 2012 Olympic qualifiers.
In 2012 when he made a decision to move on from the All India Football Federation and invest in preparing young Indian players for professional football through a series of initiatives. In 2012, the company announced a partnership with the French football club, Football Club Metz.
The partnership set up the opportunity for young Indian football players to work and train with the French club professionally. Football club de Metz, a Ligue 1 outfit has produced players such as Franck Ribery, Papiss Cissé, Robert Pirès, Emmanuel Adebayor, Louis Saha and Miralem Pjanić.
In 2014, Sunil Chhetri, the captain of the Indian National team and I-league club, Bengaluru Football Club was announced as the Brand Ambassador of
Benny introduced 4v4 leagues in different regions across India.
The first version was started Delhi and moved to different parts such as Agra, Jaipur, Musssorie, Dehradun, Pune, Bangalore and Mumbai. 4v4 leagues were adopted to help players develop their ability and skills in tighter spaces. Benny believes that this format is the way forward for Indian football.
"My Chance (2013)" was another initiative for Under-13 and Under-15 age groups from across schools, clubs and Non-governmental organizations which allowed players and teams to compete amongst each other in New Delhi and the National Cash Register region.
Four Players were sent to the Football Club Metz(France) academy to train for a month, which was sponsored by "My Chance" aimed at the opportunity for young players and coaches to help promote the game and to foster upcoming football talent. "Eric Benny Foundation" was started in the year 2012 with the objective to raise awareness and interest of football amongst the ‘not so privileged’ and provide them a professional platform to pursue their dreams.
The Foundation stands for ‘Football for Change’ and encourages fans, followers and benefactors to support the mission through donations and other benevolent activities. Some of the proceeds collected by the foundation go to various non-profit organisations that work for the betterment of underprivileged children living in the slums.
