Actors shine at charity football tournament

Pune: Pune has seen a lot of football action and filmstars over the last 11 days all thanks to a charity football tournament.

Actors Nana Patekar and John Abraham joined in the celebrations of the closing ceremony of the Abhijeet Kadam Memorial Football Tournament in Pune on Saturday.

The duo also addressed the football fans in Marathi.

Showing off Marathi language skills may just be a way to catch the crowd's attention but the two actors were just being good sport.

The 11-day tournament had 28 football teams from across the country including the second division 'I' league teams.

Vasco and Mumbai FC played the final with Mumbai FC taking away the trophy.

The tournament had a good share of star attraction throughout with Shah Rukh Khan on the opening ceremony to Salman Khan, Govinda, Ranbir Kapoor playing in the celebrity match.

"Actors kya hain kee, actor ko dekhna logon ko dilchaspi hoti hain. Hum toh khel nahin sakte. Woh usko pakda na dekho John woh raha (People are interested in seeing the actors but we cannot play. See there is John. Catch him)," Nana told the crowd.

"Somebody asked me 'do you plan to buy a football team? I said if I don't buy it now, after four years it will be very expensive and here is a prospective buyer," John said pointing towards the organiser Vishwajeet Kadam.

Buyer or no buyer, all the glitterati during the event, did win the sport some more attention.

But what about the charity? Well, an amount of Rs 2.5 lakh only was given away to NGOs for cancer and AIDS patients.

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#Nana Patekar #John Abraham #football