Kolhapur: City artist Sachin Suryawanshi won the best non-fiction award at this year’s Filmfare short film category for his documentary ‘The Soccer City’. He is now planning to screen it among various teams in the city, in an attempt to lower the infamous hooliganism associated with the sport and put forth its importance in the city culture.Suryavanshi said, “The football here has the greatest history of all. Our forefathers used to play it barefoot with a ball made of paper, cloth, or cheap leather. In fact, the Polish refugees who stayed here in Kolhapur, used to play with the locals. The game has evolved thanks to the many hardships, dedication, devotion and loyalty of the teams and players from the older days. The present generation needs to respect that.”“We want to show our documentary to highlight how the game has evolved and how important it is to be responsible for our actions. I know it cannot bring a sudden change of mindset but we can always start an interaction, a debate with its screening,” he added.Suryavanshi said that they shot the documentary in the last 12 months and around 25 people were associated with the production, which was initially planned to cover the basic history of the game. However, it later evolved to its present status, where it has shown the jealousy and vulnerability in the game.It has to be noted that the police had earlier booked 20 people from the Dilbahar Talim and Patakadil Talim Mandals for creating ruckus at the Shahu stadium on Sunday, March 24’s evening. Four people, including a police constable, were injured in the incident.Meanwhile, the Kolhapur Sports Association, the body that looks after football tournaments in the city, has declared to stop all football tournaments in Kolhapur. There were three tournaments that were scheduled to be held in Kolhapur next month.

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