Football Has Much To Do In India

If one person unknowingly asks another person in india about his favourite sport, without the blink of an eye,a response comes-cricket.And after that, a question is asked by the person answering,”have you gone nuts to ask such a stupid Question?” because, even after the overwhelming response Hockey is getting after the blockbuster “CHAK-DE”, only one sport seems to rule Indian hearts,that is cricket. And in a nation where cricket stars get as much attention as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie anywhere in the world, only one sport can claim to steal the audiences and even die-hard cricket fans. If you guessed it right,it’s football.

The youth these days are attracted to watching the big european clubs battle it out for the coveted trophies in Europe. One can see many kids and teenagers cheerfully wearing the jersies with names of players like Ronaldinho, Ronaldo ,Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry on their back. Also a number of pubs have opened up in which people can sit and enjoy their time watching their favourite clubs and players play. Watching all this ,one can say that football will definitely rule many hearts in the coming days in India. But one often forgets that football is not being played only in Europe, but our own country has a big history of football behind it. Not many people would know that Durand Cup is one of the oldest football tournaments is the history of football,infact it is the third oldest football tournament in the world, behind only the English FA Cup and Scottish FA Cup.

This ignorance has led to the drop in the FIFA rankings of India. A person who is interested in football may follow the latest happenings from the La-Liga to the Premier League , but when it comes to Indian football, he completely blacks out. Same was the case when i asked a teenager, he was able to list down even the reserve team players of a big european club, but when it came to naming a few Indian clubs or even the players of the Indian national team, there was a big moment of silence and then what i heard were the words “no idea”.

If all this is happening in our country, who is to blame for this??? One may debate the fact by saying that our country doesn’t have the right set-up and doesn’t get the infrastructure facilities received by other countries, but the real fact is that it is not the infrastructure facilities affecting the growth, but the corruption that is causing a stagnancy.A few years ago, Zanitti, Director of FIFA’s GOAL development programme said that: “FIFA’s job is to provide the money but, in countries like India, we are forced to deal directly with the people to whom the money is paid eventually.” Also they seem to suggest that their is a lack of professionalism.

“We know there is corruption, but I can’t talk specifically about India, because for corruption, you need money. And, from where I stand, the AIFF has no money.” Sepp Blatter was quoted as saying by Indianfootball.com. The FIFA boss named India a”sleeping giant”. He also said that “Till the 60’s India was a big name in Asian Football but thereafter the decline started. To revive from this decline, India must be self sufficient in its national football infrastructure.” He is also said “help yourself and the heaven will help you. It’s your country, and you know it better how to sort out the odds. Once you do that, FIFA is always there to carry you forward.”

By these comments one can say that according to FIFA, we may have improved but still their is a chance to improve. Also on being asked whether Indian clubs can equal the feet achieved by Chelsea and Man Utd., Mr.Blatter said “Well, it is too far to compare your clubs to that of Manchester United or Chelsea. They have near about one million active members and just imagine if each one of them contributes at least ten dollars, then how much would it count? Similarly, Chelsea, which had lot of money poured in by a Russian multimillionaire, has its own pool of quality players and they have a wonderful infrastructure!!

But, yes your clubs are too good; some of them are even older than FIFA. But it is too early to compare them with those clubs rather they may be compared with similar kind of clubs as in Sweden.” His comments seem to bolster the administrators but still, he doesn’t say anything about the financial help.      

As for facilities, big companies are funding this setup in India like Kingfisher, Mahindra, HAL etc.Add the fact to facilities, are facilities in our country  poorer than the war-torn country of Iraq. They have achieved a feet in football which many call the “FAIRYTALE ENDING” in their football history by winning the Asian cup and beating all the big teams in Asia like Australia who have represented Asia in the World Cup-2006.In addition to this, there is even a lack of information among the youngsters about getting proper training to take up this sport as a profession.

One can say that for getting more people to take it up as a profession,the AIFF should try it’s best so that this sport is taken up more at the primary level as it needs a lot of preparation and training . All these reasons have been the main problems in getting this sport started at a bigger level than it’s present stage.  

Lastly, I have to say that the growth of football depends on incubating this sport from the basic level i.e. from schools as even football is like an education and only if this is done from the starting, the state may improve and even one day may come when  our country can boast of an extraordinary pool of talent which only the elite nations like Germany, Italy,etc. possess.