New Delhi: All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel lauded Portugal club Sporting Lisbon for signing Sunil Chhetri and said that it was the dawn of a new era in Indian football.

Sporting signed Chhetri for the reserve (B) team on Thursday for a year to start with.

"This is the beginning of a new era for Indian football but it shouldn't stop here. For us to improve further and maybe in the coming years challenge the big countries, we need to have a strong foundation," said Patel here.

"The real issue is at the grass-roots level. The emphasis of the AIFF for the past few years is a strong youth development programme."

Patel, also union minister for heavy industries, said that the outlook on football was changing and the youth of the nation slowly but surely taking up football rather than cricket.

"Preference of cricket changing now. Youngsters nowadays madly follow European football. They know everything about the English, Spanish and even the Bundesliga."

"When Sunil plays in Portugal, he will be the brand ambassador and will bring the focus of international football on India."

Talking about AIFF's initiative towards youth prgrammes, the minister said that they had recently started three fully functional academies in Navi Mumbai.

"Recently we started three academies in Navi Mumbai which are fully functional and 7-8 are to roll out more." (IANS)