Steve Nijjar – A proud face of Punjab on the foreign soil

Uncountable personalities from the land of Punjab have contributed significantly from time to time glorifying the cultural values and heritage of Punjab like the son of this land, Steve Nijjar, who besides being an influential and brilliant Canadian actor, a senior football player and a coach as well as a topmost businessman. Talented Kulwant Singh Nijjar alias Steve Nijjar, a resident of the village Domeli in the princely city of Kapurthala, under the Doaba region of Punjab, migrated to Toronto, Canada at a tender age of 9 years. Nijjar, who belongs to an influential Zamindar family, was the first Indian youth who played a crucial role in giving a new lease of life and international dignity to football in Canada and due to this talent, he is today owning a professional football team there.

Talking about his life, sports and film journey, he said that he stated playing football in 1987 with Toronto Blizzards in the Canadian Football League for a three-year span. He set up a new franchise in 2001 called Brampton Hitman, which has achieved a tough competition, beating big sports-stars and teams in Canada.

He explained that he was appointed as the head coach for Brampton in the Football League, 2002, due to the excellent responsibilities he played in the field, following which he had the ability to turn Brampton's struggling team into a major force in the subsequent seasons. Because of this, the team could play the final of the CPSL Championship.

He stated that he also served as a co-coach for Bovista FC in 2004 for CPSL All Star Team. The young man, who has always loved Punjabi customs and music, and always prefers to connect with his soil, further revealed that in the international film world, he got introduced with his film The Final Goal, produced by his home-based banner Five Rivers Films  and was released in over 40 countries in 1993. He told that in this film, well known Hollywood actress Eric Estrada played opposite him. After this in 1997, he played memorable role in -Safe Zone- starring Frank Zergeno and Mathis Huis.

In 2015, he developed, produced and acted in a film - The Last King, which made its presence felt in the Cannes film market. His love for the media and soccer helped him develop a football-based sports reality show - Soccer Dreams, in which Steve was Head as well as executive coach. It was aired on Fox Sports, USA. Currently Steve is also running his own security company, Titan, which has taken over the security of celebrities like Pierce Branson, Karan Johar, Irrfan Khan, Jake Efranay, Cindy Crawford.

Steve's love for India has brought him back to his roots. He has come up with India's first soccer-based talent hunt cum sports reality show - Indian Soccer Star. The winner of the show will get a cash reward of Rs 50 lakh and a two-year contract with the Toronto Football Club.

Having achieved high standards in the Hollywood film world and Canadian sporting world, Steve is now moving forward to fulfill his duty to his real soil, saying his ambition is to do something special for his country in sports and film arena. He will soon announce some special plans for India.