After Chanakya, Ajay Devgn to play Syed Abdul Rahim in biopic of India's 1956 Olympic football coach

A wave of sports biopics is washing over Bollywood and yet another addition to the list is Ajay Devgn’s film on the story of Syed Abdul Rahim, football coach and manager of the Indian National Football team from 1950-1963. Rahim led the team that entered the semi-finals of the Melbourne Olympics Football Tournament, making it the first-ever Asian team to reach that far in the game, according to a Times of India report. His tenure as coach is considered to be the golden age of football in the country. [caption id=“attachment_4731501” align=“alignleft” width=“825”]  File image of Ajay Devgn. News18[/caption] Under his training, the Indian football team also went on to win a gold medal in the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, defeating South Korea, one of the leading soccer teams at the time. Ajay Devgn is set to essay the role of this prominent figure who is regarded as the architect of modern Indian football. The film, produced by Boney Kapoor is slated to go on floors next year, a Mumbai Mirror report said.

The sports drama will be directed by Amit Sharma who has previously collaborated with Boney for Tevar and with Devgn for the 2002 thriller, Company. On this development, Boney told Bombay Times, “I was amazed that not many are aware of someone as significant as Syed Abdul Rahim. He’s an unsung hero whose achievements must be saluted. His team had heroes like Chunni Goswami, P.K. Banerjee, Balaram, Franco and Arun Ghosh. It takes someone like Ajay Devgn to play Syed Abdul Rahim.” [caption id=“attachment_4731551” align=“alignleft” width=“825”]  Farhan Akhtar as Milkha Singh, Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom and Sushant Singh Rajput as MS Dhoni.[/caption] Previously Farhan Akhtar, Priyanka Chopra, Emraan Hashmi and Sushant Singh Rajput have portrayed roles of prominent sports figures. The Diljit Dosanjh-starrer Soorma , based on the life of hockey player Sandeep Singh released on 13 July. _Gold_ , starring Akshay Kumar, slated to release on 15 August tells the story of Tapan Das, the manager of India’s first independent hockey team. A biopic on Saina Nehwal starring Shraddha Kapoor and one on Abhinav Bindra starring Harshvardhan Kapoor is also in the works, a TimesNow report said. Ajay Devgn recently appeared in  Raid and will be seen playing Chanakya in Neeraj Pandey’s upcoming biographical film.