KOCHI: With only a few days left for the Fifa World Cup to begin, football fever is catching up in the city.

But unknown to most, the International Blind Sports Association’s (IBSA) World Blind Football Championship is currently underway in Spain.

And a Kochi-based start-up, Sightica, has made a mobile application that allows the blind to follow this World Cup.

The application, Blind Football India, aims to provide the blind with information and updates of the blind football, and to help them understand the game and its rules.

Sunil J Mathew, sporting director of Indian Blind Football Federation (IBFF) and one of the founders of India’s first Blind Football Academy in Kochi, said that IBSA has shown interest in having a similar multi-lingual application for the blind in different parts of the world.

Sightica is currently the only Asian representative in the IBSA World Blind Football Committee.

“The app has an events and information section, which highlights details about the national blind football team, with a timeline and game rule. The world championship also can be followed here. As of now, there is only one application that is serving this sector. We are getting a quite a few hits because of this,” Mathew said.

The application has been tested to be effective for the usage of a blind person, he added.

Sightica, which was founded in 2014, had also developed an application that helps the blind to make phones call with gestures and have a navigation application for the blind.
Mathew said that in past few weeks he had meetings with the World Committee and had the opportunity to meet the top 16 World Blind Football teams that are currently playing the World Cup, which will conclude on June 17.

“I saw the best practices that are followed by teams across the world and I’m planning to adapt it in our academy. Furthermore, I have also been in talks with some of the major football associations in the world that have expressed willingness to work with us,” said Mathew, who added that he had been pushing for the next Asian Blind Football Cup to be hosted in India.

Currently, the India Blind Football team is ranked 29 in the Blind Football World ranking.

M C Roy of IBFF said that in the past couple of years, awareness about blind football had significantly increased but it has miles to go.