Vivek Agnihotri made his way to the minds of football fans across the Indian sub-continent while directing the Bollywood blockbuster 'Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal'.

Agnihotri has an advertising and Harvard background. After a one year post-graduation break Vivek did a course at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. A stint at Harvard was followed by joby at O&M and McCann and then his own consulting firm Offbeat. A number of ads later, he ventured into television programming, an exercise that has won him several awards.

His football blockbuster 'Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal' was released on November 23, 2007, produced by Ronnie Screwvala and directed by Vivek under the UTV Motion Pictures banner. The film stars John Abraham, Bipasha Basu, Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani. The film is a contemporary story of the South Asian community in the UK, told through the dynamic prism of professional football.

IndianFootball.Com Founder & Editor-in-Chief Arunava Chaudhuri had the opportunity to interview Vivek Agnihotri... Enjoy the interview!

Arunava: Tell us about your own interest in football. Do you follow Indian football or rather international football?

Vivek: Football is a religion in my house. My 5 year old son is an encyclopaedia on football. It is very difficult to follow Indian football as the media has decided to ignore it completely.

Arunava: Did you deliberately pick football as the sports theme in the movie or was it in line with the story being based in the UK?

Vivek: The theme was football and it was always as it was set in the United Kingdom.

Arunava: Did you know about the problems that British Asian footballers face before you made the movie 'GOAL'?

Vivek: In the UK most of the Asian boys play football. They play in all practice sessions. They also reach semi-professional level like any other British guy. I always wondered that why they don’t end up in the big teams. Then I got talking with them and what was revealed to me was a dark reality. There is so much racism in British football that last year even FIFA ran an official campaign ‘Let’s kick racism out of football’. That’s the year when we shot our film.

Arunava: Please tell us something about how long the actors had to practice and was there a football expert coaching the actors?

Vivek: Andy Ansah from the UK trained the boys. He is the best in the business of football choreography for films. He has done 'Goal' 1, 2 & 3 for Hollywood. He was in India for a couple of months to train the actors. Then his assistant was here full time with us. All the boys including John Abraham and Arshad Warsi trained for three months.

Arunava: John Abraham’s football skills have received praise from different quarters. Have you received any feedback from footballers on your movie?

Vivek: Yeah, Baichung Bhutia along with the Indian national team watched the movie and he was stunned. He thought we captured the game so very correctly.

Arunava: How did the tie-up with Reebok come about for the movie - Did the producers approach Reebok or was it the other way around?

Vivek: In fact all major Brands approached us. We shortlisted Reebok because they were hungry to enter the football market and were willing to create a new line for the movie. In fact the GOAL-Reebok tie-up and the campaign received the Ad Club Gold award in the just concluded Goa Ad Fest.

Arunava: Why do you think we have seen a spate of sports movies in the recent past? Is this a reflection in anyway on India being such a young nation (demographically speaking) or do you see any other reasons?

Vivek: Where has been this spate? Just 'Chak De India' and 'GOAL'. Two sports movies out of many hundreds can’t be described as a trend.

Arunava: 'Chak de India' was a great hit in India and it motivated many in the country. When you were working on Dhan Dhana Dhan GOAL did you feel any added pressure ahead of the release of GOAL?

Vivek: 'Chak De India' started after us. Hence, no question of competition. And these are different films. 'Chak De' was based on patriotic sentiments while we were a hardcore sports action drama.

Arunava: Can we expect another football movie from you in the near future?

Vivek: We have discussed 'GOAL 2' but right now I’m busy with another film.

Arunava: What do you say about our site IndianFootball.Com?

Vivek: I just checked your site... Fabulous... Great site! Tons of congratulations!!!

Arunava: Thank you for talking to us at IndianFootball.Com!