“When I started in 2013, there was nothing” — he imported the ball from England.
You don't wait for the field to exist. You build it.
“When we asked for funding, they said that's your headache.”
Build like the cavalry is never arriving. It isn't.
~850 boys and ~140 girls now playing — world #4, Asia #2.
Scale is proof the system works, not luck.
He split India into five zones and reverse-engineered the whole pipeline.
When there's no map, you draw one.
“We hand-hold the player after he plays” — a captain now has a road named after him.
Build for the human, not just the result.
India had never fielded a blind football team that could trouble the world’s best. Sunil Mathew built one anyway — from a 20-minute demo game into teams now ranked in the global top five, on a fraction of the funding of the nations they beat.
Sunil — Founder & Head Coach of the Indian Blind Football Federation — takes us inside a sport played entirely without sight: four totally-blind outfield players, a sighted keeper, a ball with a bell inside, and three voices guiding from keeper, coach and goal-guide. He shares the moments that made the mission: a player offered surgery to restore his sight who turned it down because “I cannot play football without this,” a 13-year-old who said “I will fight for you, I will die for you” before scoring at the Women’s World Cup, and a boy who fell from a jackfruit tree and now captains India with a road named after him in his village.
It’s also a clear-eyed look at the work: ~15 million visually impaired Indians, 75–80% of that blindness preventable, no government funding, and a coach who refuses to take a salary — plus how India went from importing footballs from England to manufacturing them in Jalandhar, and Psychetica, the assistive-tech device Sunil is building to catch a fall within the golden hour.
Sunil J. Mathew’s Highlights:
→ Founder & Head Coach of the Indian Blind Football Federation (IBFF), Kochi
→ Built India’s blind football teams from scratch to a global top-five ranking — with no government funding
→ Drew Germany and beat Austria at the blind Women’s World Cup; beat Japan 1–0 in the snow
→ Took India from importing footballs from England to manufacturing them in Jalandhar (Make in India)