Children at the Akhand Jyoti Football Academy. Telegraph picture

Patna, Aug. 6: A jersey of UK’s Chelsea football club put up for auction to help sponsor a residential football training programme and studies of four girls from rural Bihar has found a buyer in a Britain doctor.

Eye surgeon Dr Philip Bloom purchased it for £1,000 (around Rs 72,000).

British philanthropist and ophthalmologist Dr Lucy Mathen, working with blind people in rural India since 2000, conducted the auction through her organisation Second Sight.

Chelsea had donated a jersey bearing signatures of some of its players for auction. On May 20, The Telegraph had carried a report about the proposed auction of the jersey.

Second Sight came up with advertisements for the auction. Chancing upon those, Dr Bloom of UK purchased it.

The proceeds of the auction would be donated to Akhand Jyoti Football Academy (Ajfa), Mastichak, around 60km north-west of Patna. The academy has been set up by those managing Akhand Jyoti Eye Hospital. Second Sight extends financial and technical support to the eye hospital, which Dr Mathen visits every three months.

“We would contribute an amount equal to what has been raised through the auction of the Chelsea jersey, which would make the funds sufficient to support the training and education of the four rural girls who would be selected soon,” Mukesh Tiwary, the senior administrator of the hospital and the academy, told The Telegraph.

Tiwary said more than the money earned through the auction, the hospital was impressed by the gesture of Chelsea and Dr Mathen. Tiwary also thanked Dr Bloom for bidding the highest amount for the jersey.

At present, 18 girls — all school students — are enrolled with the academy. Ajfa would include 15 more rural girls in the academy.

The cost of training of four girls would come from the proceeds of the auction of the Chelsea jersey. The hospital would bear the expenses for the remaining 11.

Besides soccer training, the Plus Two passouts joining Ajfa would get the opportunity to pursue a BSc course in optometry, the degree for which would be provided by Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou). The hospital would bear the cost of the studies as well. The girls not eligible for the optometry course would be enrolled in diploma courses.

The Ajfa administrator said the academy was working on the long-term goal of inducting 100 rural girls every year.

“Apart from using our own resources, we are in touch with Beyond Sports, a UK-based organisation, which extends help to the organisations using sports as a tool for the development of people. We are negotiating with the organisation and hope to get success, as our goal is also to script the success of rural girls through their sporting skills,” Tiwari said.

Apart from promoting sports among rural girls, Ajfa works as an agency that intends to put effective check on underage marriages, a common practice in rural Bihar. Only those girls are admitted to the academy whose parents give in writing that they would not marry off their daughters before they attain the age of 21.