How the Indian Cricket Team scored a Goal…
I live in Bangalore, India. The same India that till a little while ago used to single-mindedly focus its billion-strong sporting energies on one sport – Cricket. Why not too? It’s the only sport we were half any good at in the first place. We have had a few sportspersons come along every few decades to represent us at a world stage and actually win something, but for most part – it has just been cricket. After the debacle of the 2007 Cricket World Cup, the Indian cricket team suddenly has no takers. Sponsors and fans alike. Heroes fall easy.
Wait, why am I going on about cricket on a football blog? Read on…
Like I was saying before I rudely interrupted myself, the sudden and complete lack of interest in cricket has allowed other sports to introduce themselves to the Indian public, in particular, football. The EPL actually, since it’s the only league covered extensively on TV here. What used to be a niche convergence of dedicated club fans is blossoming into a bustling community – to the extent that you can strike up a conversation in an elevator about how the Red Devils thrashed the Toffees without everyone thinking you belong in a loony bin.
With more people actively following the EPL and other leagues as far as they can, it can only bode well for the future of football in India. This trend is already apparent with more kids playing footie than cricket in neighborhoods and schools. Increasing awareness is also helping the local football league get more attention, both from enthusiasts and from sponsors. Obviously, an infusion of money (much needed) and talent will help in improving the infrastructure that is essential to building a stable and long-term plan for Indian football. The current facilities are woeful and the apathy of the Government towards development of football is not helping matters much. Very recently football was categorized as a non-priority sport, meaning that the Government will support it even less; providing lesser funding, infrastructure, training etc.
One hopes that with a slice of luck, ESPN & Star Sports and the collective leaning power of 1 billion people, football in India will at least pull itself out of the rapidly receding shadow of cricket and reiterate why it is the most loved sport in the world. Also, the Indian cricket team could contribute well to this effort by continuing their current form on the world stage. You see, we are a forgiving people.
A few tidbits of info on the Indian team for those who read this far - Some pretty interesting points in there.
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Aayush
This is a very well thought and appropriate article. On the one hand FIFA has promised bucketloads of support for Indian Football, the Government has indeed turned its back on it! THe Crazilians have also pledged support in terms of coaching - Consider this Football in India started as far back as over 125yrs ago approx. It deserves correct infrastructure. Our new national team coach Bob is looking for talent across India as well as NRI’s. The trouble is there is match fixing and cronyism still exists. Despite all this I am optimistic for Indian Footballing future!
Great article! If anything it brought to attention the plight of Indian Football to the forefront. I remember a few months ago Sepp Blatter visited India & urged the Indian Government & the public to support football as is it is truly a global sport. The AFC president who accompanied him, Mohammed bin Hammam, was scathing in his criticism of the infrastructure & lack of support for the sport within the country.
I completely agree with his statments. I hate it when people i talk to say that we shouldn’t worry too much about football because we’ve got cricket.
WAKE UP!
I’m from India. I grew up there & went to school there & of all of the good times i remember during breaks between classes, playing football on the school pitch was our favourite pasttime. All it required was a pitch, a ball & 2 goalposts & the game was on. Hardly anyone would play cricket. And let me tell you, the school i went to HAD TALENT! I’ve been following football since ‘98 & i’ve always been pissed off at the lack of support or media coverage football gets in the country where the biggest, most well kept secret is that EVERYONE loves it. I always wonder what would have happened if the guys who went to my school had ever bothered to take up the sport professionally if they had even a fraction of the support players receive in other countries. Even African nations have qualified for the World Cup for God’s sake. If they can do it with the minimal budgets they have then what the hell is stopping us?
With our current economic boom we have the money. We just lack the political will. I’m not gonna restrict the blame to the government on this. The public also need to wake up & realise that cricket is not the be all and end all. With all the money we’ve poured into it we’ve still only managed 1 world cup victory in our 60 years since Independence. Its time to give other sports a chance. I DO NOT accept stupid arguments like ‘Oh! The Indian physique isn’t suited to play football! Our diet is just not right!’ etc etc etc ad nauseam. SHUT UP you naysayers. If South Korea & Japan can do it on a regular basis then so the hell can we. Their players don’t exactly tower over the opposition do they?
Our country is BRIMMING with talent! Its in every school, in every city, in every state across the country, crossing cultural divides & all socioeconomic lines. We need to get cracking!
Well done mate. I only wish i had written this article first!
WELL DONE AAYUSH FOR THIS ARTICLE. NOW I HAVE FOUND SOMEONE FROM MY COUNTRY TALKING ABOUT THE PLIGHT OF FOOTBALL. SOMETIMES IT IS SO HARD TO BELIEVE THAT A COUNTRY WHERE THE GROWTH RATE OF ECONOMY IS 8-9% PER ANNUM AND RISING, THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL GAME HAS NO PLACE IN THE PEOPLE’S HEARTS. THROUGHOUT THE WORLD WE INDIANS HEAR THAT OUR COUNTRY HAS SO MUCH POTENTIAL IN EVERY SECTOR OF THE ECONOMY BUT IT IS SOMETIMES STAGGERING TO BELIEVE THAT WE CAN’T PRODUCE 11 FOOTBALL PLAYERS FROM A POPULATION OF 1 BILLION.
MY APPEAL TO ALL INDIANS IS TO SUPPORT THE GAME A LITTLE MORE. WE KNOWN THAT THIS IS A CRICKET CRAZY NATION, BUT IT IS NO HARM TO SUPPORT SPORTS AS A WHOLE. MY APPEAL TO THE GOVERNMENT IS TO PROMOTE THE GAME OF SOCCER AS THERE IS A LOT OF UNTAPPED POTENTIAL AND RICHES THAT CAN BE EXPLORED. CORPORATES AND PARTICULARLY PRIVATE SPORTS CHANNELS CAN COME FORWARD AND DO THEIR BIT TO IMPROVE THE GAME.
Being an Indian footy freak myself i can completely empathize with what your going through. We have all had to endure the frustration of tuning in at kickoff and finding some ridiculously boring hockey match or some Pakistan/sri lankan match airing which i couldn’t care less about. But there are signs that the broadcasters are waking up to the demand if not the government. The launch of Star Cricket gives ESPN/Star a dedicated channel to air cricket on and leave ESPN for football. Also the changing of the timings of PHL from weekends to weekdays shows they have taken the Premiership into consideration. We also have the introduction by corporates into the market. They have realized the potential is enormous and the recent training camp held by Arsenal in Mumbai shows the increase of interest and the potential of growth, not to mention the touring of the AC Milan U-21 team of India a year ago. The signs are there of things improving and im happy us footy fanatics will finally get the coverage and service we have been demanding !
I understand what your trying to say about the coverage & the training camps that are being held in India, but it’s either too little or too slow. Taking the example of the African Nations, they’ve come very far very fast in the last decade or two. At this rate i don’t see the Indian National team making that kind of progress in that time frame. I guess providing more coverage of the sport in India is one way of getting interest started but they need to focus a bit on the domestic leagues as well.
To get the National team up to standard they need to get the domestic leagues up to standard & one of the few ways is by covering the cup competitions more extensively. Getting TV money & big business in is another way. I don’t think the government will do much unless they see a shift in the public mood happening towards the sport. Personally i don’t see how people are still interested in watching cricket with the farce that was made of the last world cup. I guess they like the drama more than the actual gameplay what with the murder investigation of Bob Woolmer & all the media reports of player infighting etc etc etc.
There are some moves afoot for the creation of new league so we’ll see how that pans out.
By the way. I know there are a significant number of Indians who read this blog & i’d just like to call out to all of them t o put their 2 cents in! This issue is really important & needs to be at the forefront of discussions. Any ideas would be welcome.
A lively debate is one of the small ways we can get the public interested & we’ve got to start somewhere so C’MON!
good article, aayush.
have a couple of observations here:
1. At grassroots level (kids on grounds) football competes and in certain states of India exceeds football in popularity. And this was before EPL/Liga and CL came on TV. In fact the only football I saw in early nineties was WC and CL finals. So this is not really a new thing.
Incidentally, you are talking about Bangalore where football was always popular (army influence/players from Coorg). It may be true again for most metros but where else would you think Gooners thrashing Toffees would not get you classified as a loony?
2. India was actually good at football. Not Brazil or Germany good but our teams of 50s and 60s gave other Asian/African nations stiff competition. We have only gone downhill from there not only in soccer but every other sport. There are structural issues at play here and not only interest of the public.
3. Sports in general (apart from cricket and for upper classes tennis to an extent) is not seen as a viable career option. If english soccer players had only the EPL clubs to aim for it would not be an option there too. The cost of failure is too high. What we really need is a structure where one can good without being superlative and still earn a living out of soccer.
4. Which gets me to a lower level leagues and their financial sustainability. Do you think for a 2nd league team we would have a 1000 people paying 50 rupees a match turn up week after week. Thats like a minimum for some semblance of sustainability. A case in comparison might be domestic cricket tournaments where the attendance is abysmal.
5. A cricket type model - where the revenues from the national team’s performances is used to push the domestic game is not possible in soccer.
So while, EPL coming live and AC milan U-21s visiting definitely cause a stir they do not cause a change in the structure. For that we would have remodel the entire soccer infrastructure. An recent article on goal.com stated how we need a Jagmohan Dalmiya (the guy who made Indian cricket the money making machine it is) for football in India. Though many might not like it, I would agree with that statement if football is to be rejuvenated in this country.
But the worst part is espn star went ahead and launched a full time cricket channel
I was happy that india cricket team was loosing and other sports were getting addidas and nike coke pepsi deal
We’re shit in footy and hokey and we with a population this big get 2-3 medals in olympic and commenwealths
I pray Footbal get more vijay malyas buying clubs and growing the india club scene .
Actually indian punk it’s good that start decided to launch a channel for only cricket that way we can get uninterrupted football coverage from espn star sports. I used to get really angry when they wud show a dumb south africa vs west indies cricket test match wen we have exciting epl matches going on.
Bye the way good article aayush we all feel the same about football in india. It’s pathetic situation.
Other day when i was watching indian football; my dad who’s a huge cricket fan & won’t watch football asked me to watch the epl because he felt the quality of (NFL)national football league match was poor.He asked me to switch to epl even he cud make out the diff such huge is the gap.
Sepp Blatter came here and just crapped out what we already knew. Yeah we need support from the government, encouragement, blah, blah, blah… He never offered us any “real help” which was expected of the tour. We spent a huge sum on his arrival alone, which turned out to be half the amount(not sure of the exact proportions) we had invested in football or something like that.
thanks for the responses…lets keep our fingers crossed for the future
It is true that the quality of the NFL matches is poor. I don’t know what we can do about that. Its not like i’m gonna start encouraging people to watch that sort of thing regularly. But i think there are contributing factors such as poor quality of stadiums, equipment, training etc. Again it comes back to the basic argument of money, direction & the will to effect change. I guess we have to start somewhere. But has anyone heard anything about this new Pro-League that’s supposed to start up later this year?
Another concern i have is that all the top clubs in India still feel the need to import players from countries like Brazil & Nigeria. They are basically sending a message that they don’t have enough confidence in home grown talent or maybe they aren’t able to develop the young talent properly due to a poor youth policy. I have heard rumblings that some of the Indian players in these clubs, like Sunil Chetri for example, might be offered trials in the lower leagues in Europe & other places. Just like Baichung Bhutia but his stint with Bury wouldn’t be called successful. Any news on that front either?
More information on the questions i’ve asked would be welcome.
I just saw the TV listings for august & IND-ENG ODIs are being shown on ESPN………..WTF!(WHY DID U LAUNCH AN EXCLUSIVE CHANNEL FOR CRICKET THEN???) WE Indian footie lovers should really have some appreciation for ZEE sports for showing the NFL(Indian national football league)and also that sexy presenter Langer :),they also show a lot of football internationals. Although ZEE is planning its own cricket league I hope it falls through. we should try to emulate (Please don’t laugh!) the US soccer model .I know that people are ridiculing the US soccer establishment but they at least qualify for the world cup regularly.Watching the Asian cup is like torture for me even as I see nations like Iraq(well done!!!!my dark horses for the tournament),Vietnam do well.But to be fair to them they do play a fairly decent brand of football.I was a youth player for my state when i was in high school and was even ready to take up football professionally but where i lived(Hyderabad)there were no chances for me so it was kolkata or bust & i didn’t have the finances or support.I quit & now i sit on my ass typing this post wondering what could have been, if only there had been a PROPER youth system in place *sigh*
Hey do any of you guys have a list of all the club owners for the NFL? I know Mallya owns FC Cochin but what about the other major ones? I’m guessing some of them are partially government run.
Also i would appreciate any information about how the NFL is funded & managed. I’m getting a lot of conflicting information & would appreciate some good sources/references. Any insider info about the League is also more than welcome.
Thanks!