Football is the second most popular sport in India. Its ever increasing popularity and a new generation of fans are crucial to the way its path will pan out in the future. Like every other country we have our national league called the ONGC I-League where the best Indian talent is on display, week in and week out. This league has improved marginally over the years. The salaries of the players have increased as well but there is still, no realistic comparison with the same of the cricketers or footballers in better ranked nations than ours. The stadiums have improved from before but not many of them can be referred to as world class. Rather than investing more money to improve the playing conditions in the I-league or revamping it, some people believe that growth in Indian football can be attained by "plan B".
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| A snap from the I-league |
It’s here for the first time-The big money in Indian football. Premier League Soccer is the world’s first franchise based football league. For first time on this planet, football players and coaches were “auctioned”. I was not shocked that this sort of event debuted in India. Celebrity Management Group tied up with IFA (Football association for the state of West Bengal) to host this 2 month long “soccer” tournament in the state of West Bengal. The CEO of CMG, Bhaswar Goswami, expects India to clinch a world cup spot in the next 10 years and thinks that this might turn out to be the turning point.
I don’t know about all football fans across India, but many of them are still scratching their heads thinking about the vitality of this event to the development of Indian football. To be perfectly honest, I was jubilant when I read the tweet of Robert Pires(Arsenal and a French legend) pertaining to his inclusion in this competition. Any Indian football fan will get excited if Fabio Cannavaro (Italian world cup winning captain), Robbie Fowler (Liverpool legend), Hernan Crespo (Former Argentine striker) and some other international stars( however ageing) decide to play a football tournament in our own backyard. I read the name of this tournament and it had the word “soccer” in it. This is not the biggest issue but a true football fan will know how demeaning it is to use this word until and unless you’re from U.S.A. This was nothing more than an indication about the knowledge and the interests of the people involved. Reading about the inclusion of foreign coaches made me think that this could benefit our footballers who will learn a lot. The likes of Peter Reid (former English premier league manager) and 5 others from the European nations can impart some valuable footballing wisdom. I was pretty excited and happy till I read the “fine print”.
I don’t know if it occurred to the IFA or the AIFF when they planned this with sound vision, that this tournament will take place DURING the I-league and the AFC-Challenge cup. So, if we are talking about those 2 petty months of training under decent coaches and playing alongside superstars, the best Indian players will NOT be included because they will be fighting for their country’s qualification for the AFC Asian cup in Nepal. The set of Indian players who missed out on the national squad will be busy representing their respective club teams in the I-league and will NOT play in the PLS.
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| We won the 2008 AFC challenge cup to qualify for the 2011 AFC asian cup |
However on the bright side, this league will have a clause, where each team wi ll compulsorily have to buy 6 Indian players under the age of 21. To come to think of it, this is a really good opportunity for the youngsters who could not make it to the I-league, while on the other hand this is a SLAP on the faces of those players who have worked tirelessly to reach to the top of the football structure in India. It is a tight slap because these under 21s will rope in a salaries of around 2 lakh for just a couple of months and they will also get the opportunity to play alongside the above mentioned players and train under those European coaches. Another aspect of a big event is the aspect of popularity. People might think that this will popularize the sport of football in India. This tournament (at least for this season) is confined to the walls of West Bengal. Let’s just be honest here, THAT region of our country needs no introduction to football. The thing that shocks me the most is that the IFA is the oldest football federation in India (estd. 1893) and they still went ahead with this.
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| Jeje |
Another concern of mine was the formation of 6 franchises when we already have the club structure in place. The Barasat team was bought for a whopping INR 25.15 crore (250 million) and there are 5 more teams. With the club system in place, huge sums of money to improve the infrastructure would get us closer to the world cup while spending huge sums to have a 2 month long tournament with ageing superstars will not. Certainly, not at all without the inclusion of the best YOUNG Indian players like Jeje Lalpekhlua, Lalrindika Ralte and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, who possess the highest level of potential in India.
Do these "revolutionaries" know that we qualified for a major tournament in 2011 (AFC Asian Cup) after a gap of 28 years and we needed international camps for better facilities? Our team leaves for a camp in Dubai starting from 15th Feb to prepare for the 2012 AFC Challenge cup. We need international trips before major international tournaments because we don’t have the right kind of facilities in place. It's such a disgrace that a huge sums of money are being injected into “Indian Football” and the best Indian players cannot benefit from that money. Or we can rather be optimists and just rejoice about the fact that international players will play in India?
"As you sow so shall you reap". Consider displaying old huge trees alongside young seedlings WITHOUT the best potential. Does that make sense? Well it should, if one's looking to count the total money charged for displaying the old famous trees.
