Global football star Lionel Messi is currently in India, hopping between cities, meeting the country’s who’s who and being busy with fan events across Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and other cities. The superstar, who has a huge fan following in India, has drawn crowds, drawn everyone from politicians, former sports stars, and celebrities who were all keen to be photographed alongside him as his whirlwind tour reaches a crescendo this week.
But, if anything, his visit has highlighted how, on one hand, there is a huge potential for football to be promoted given the fan following in the country, but on the other, how mismanagement has meant the country is busy chasing glamour instead of actually working to promote the game at all levels.
The contrast could not be starker. While Messi hops between Indian cities as part of his GOAT tour that is reportedly costing the organisers upward of Rs 150 crore to organise, the country does not have a league at the national level -- with no takers for the ISL, whose future is uncertain --, and that’s putting it mildly and neither for the I-League, whose tender went without any takers. Ironically, Rs 150 crore would have been more than sufficient to start a whole new football club replete with its own stadium, world-class training facilities and enough money to spend on training emerging players for years until they are qualified to be world-class.
The sport in India does not need more glamour. It needs a system and a structure. A system through which young players know exactly what to aim for when they dream of becoming football stars and see before them a clear path towards that goal. Today, that path is simply not clear; what’s worse, the pyramid structure simply does not exist. Players who start off playing for local clubs at the village, zone and state level are almost resigned to the fact that there is no higher level to aspire to. In Goa, for example, the most they can hope for is to play for the Goa Pro League. Beyond that, both the I-League (the so-called second tier of Indian football) and the ISL do not exist as of this date.
What’s worse, India’s performance at the international level has been abysmal, with the country’s ranking close to its nadir even as officials of the All India Football Federation, Kalyan Chaubey, continue to hold on to their positions, as if holding on for dear life. Indian football is broken, and unless there are structural changes and power is taken out of the hands of individuals and put into the hands of systems, this situation will continue.
Earlier this year, Goa too witnessed what appeared to be a highlight of its footballing calendar so far -- the visit of Ronaldo’s Al Nassr, which brought stars like Sadio Mane and Joao Felix to the shores of the coastal state, where players of FC Goa gave a good account of themselves even though they ultimately lost the match 2-1. It is a testament that with the right kind of circumstances, Indians are second to none when it comes to competing against the mid-level clubs from across the globe. Unfortunately, that match with Al Nassr was a one-off and, given how things are at the moment, could be the first and last of its kind that Goa hosted.
India’s footballing chiefs should quit fighting among themselves and work towards promoting the game rather than attempting to promote themselves, and if they can’t do that, they need to take a good, hard look at themselves and walk away from administering the game, since they clearly aren't good at it.
