ROHIT BHANDIYE
PANAJI
India has never participated in a FIFA World Cup. So, playing against a world-class opponent in a FIFA World Cup has always been a distant dream for the Blue Tigers. But, soon, the Indian men’s senior national team will be playing against three world-class opponents on their home soil that featured in the FIFA World Cup 2026.
On September 25, India will be playing against Panama (ranked 44) at Bengaluru’s Kanteerva Stadium which will be followed by matches against five-time world cup champions Brazil (ranked 5) and two-time world cup winners Uruguay (ranked 20) on October 3 and 6 respectively at Kolkata’s Salt Lake Stadium.
There is no doubt that it will be a good exposure for the Indian team which is currently ranked 138 in FIFA rankings. But, the cost of hosting these three matches is estimated at around Rs 80-90 crore which includes appearance fees for Brazil (Rs 35-40 crore), Uruguay (Rs. 12.5 crore) and Panama (Rs 5.5 crore). Besides that, there are travel and logistics expenses, hospitality and operations cost which includes local stay, security, and stadium management across venues.
The tickets for these matches range from Rs 849 to Rs 5999 for Panama match. For Brazil game, between Rs 3500 to Rs 25000 and for Uruguay match, the tickets are priced between Rs 749 and Rs 9999.
There is no doubt that the matches will provide global exposure for the Indian boys when they will play against world-class stars like Vinicius Junior and Raphinha from Brazil, Federico Valverde and Darwin Nunez from Uruguay, whose teams are technically and tactically far superior than their Indian counterparts.
But former India internationals believe that India must invest this kind of money more into grass-root development and give young kids exposure to global football at a young age for the standard of Indian football to grow.
Derick Pereira, former India international, says, “We need more such matches on a regular basis at the top level in order gain experience. India is slowing turning into a sporting nation. Football is one of the sports that is becoming popular in India. So, we need more matches like this. But in the long run, we need to invest more into grass-root level program.”
According to former Indian football manager and player, Shabbir Ali, “It is good that India is playing against stronger opponents such as Brazil, Uruguay and Panama. It will be a good experience for our boys. During our time around 30-40 years ago, teams such as Soviet Union, Argentina, Uruguay, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Italy, East Germany, China, used to come to India to play in the Nehru Cup. But now money and time is the problem. Big teams now charge a lot of appearance fees which was not the case earlier.”
Padmashri Brahmanand Shankhwalkar believes that we need to expose our boys to global football at a young age. The former India football captain says, “We have plenty of grassroot level program in the country. But how much exposure have our kids got. Our 15-year-old kids should be playing against 15-year-old boys from Japan or Korea. Then only they will come to know about the players who have played for Japan or Korea. The kind of money which we are spending on these friendly matches must be spent on giving exposure to our young kids. Then only they will grow and help Indian football in the long run. I am not against arranging these friendly matches for our senior team. But, at same time, money also needs to be spent in giving exposure to our youth team."
Former India international Francis D’Souza ‘Matari’ says, “It’s always good to have a lot of exposure matches because they give experience. But we should always choose our opponents which are not too far superior than our players. The benefit doesn't go to the players. I think they should play with a little more superior team because we are above 100 on the FIFA ranking while Brazil is in top-10. So, they are very superior in every department of the game. Such matches are only good for the public and organizers. Organizing such matches is also an expensive affair. So much money could have helped in the development of football at the grassroot level in terms of getting some good coaches from abroad at the grassroots level which we badly need. We have enough talent in our country. It’s a matter of nurturing the talent.”
