Game time

With the FIFA World Cup hardly a month away, here’s looking at how football is staging a comeback in India via the English and European league teams.

May 17, 2014 04:50 pm | Updated June 04, 2014 03:30 pm IST

September 2, 2011, was a very different day for the regulars (though vastly outnumbered this time) at Kolkata’s Salt Lake stadium. Lionel Messi and his Argentine side played an exhibition game against Venezuela and the match produced a football euphoria unparalleled even in Kolkata, which has steadfastly, over the years, tried to hold on to its football roots. Even as the rest of the nation threw their heart and soul behind the global exploits of our rich cricketers, at least a select few (sadly the numbers dwindle with each passing year) in the “City of Joy” didn’t mind braving the errant weather to stand for hours in derelict stands only to enjoy the mediocre scuffle in our local derby.

But, on that evening, 80,000 Indians from across the nation — mostly first-time visitors to the stadium — filled it, ignoring its limited hospitality. Their passion rivalled the emotions that had engulfed India after the cricket team’s ODI World Cup triumph earlier that year.

“This was indeed the greatest footballing spectacle in India till date. The (urban) Indian football fans have at last come out in the open. We need a wider representation on our grounds and this game has shown us a much wider base for football in the country,” Baichung Bhutia, the country’s biggest footballing icon of recent years, told me back then.

The economic liberalisation of the 1990s and the advent of satellite television was a real boon for the voyeur in us. The opening up of the Indian market brought in global brands like Lee, Levis, Coke and Pepsi, introduced us to Hollywood cinema and western sitcoms. The best of global sports and their personalities also appeared in our drawing rooms, immediately pushing home-grown athletic talent to a corner of the communal conscience.

Age-old institutions no longer mattered and East Bengal versus Mohun Bagan, India-Pakistan hockey clashes or National Grass-court Tennis Championship had no place in the public discourse. We were offered the liberty to consume quality content rather than strive to create our best. Cricket and Bollywood twirls, today, were the lone aberrations, and remain the only two great Indian exports.

The world too was happy to appease the ever-increasing hunger of the new urban Indian middle class and every motley brand was only too eager to set-up shop in our country. We definitely were proud that our tastes had evolved and were happier watching and dissecting the free-kicks of David Beckham instead of gushing over the scissor-kicks of Bhutia. Not many in India would have actually seen the diminutive Sikkimese scoring a goal, precisely executing the flamboyant move.

So with this easy availability of quality televised matches from Europe, the domestic game and the league gradually became an object of ridicule. The fans preferred the comforts of their living rooms and choose not to brave the crumbling stadiums to watch ordinary games played on grubby grounds.

But the picture was different at the turn of the previous century, grubby grounds notwithstanding Mohun Bagan’s triumph in the 1911 IFA Shield (the second oldest football tournament in the world after the English FA Cup), beating the East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in the final on July 29 was utilised by the nationalists as a symbol of triumph over the oppressive British rule. An excerpt from the unpublished memoir of the team’s wing-forward Jyotindranath “Kanu” Roy (one of the few educated players, a Calcutta Presidency College student back then) in the possession of his daughter, my fierce East Bengal-loyalist maternal grandmother, states: “Spectators came from far and near. By special trains, packing each inch of the ground… and their numbers defied all calculations. The scenes that followed the final whistle were beyond description. It was as if the whole population had gone mad and to compare it with anything would be to minimise the effect.”

The national team qualified for the Brazil World Cup in 1950 (but withdrew as the federation failed to bear the team’s travel expenses or buy boots for its players), a good two years before the cricket team’s first international Test match victory over England in Madras.

More than 60 years later, with the World Cup less that a month away from marking a return to its spiritual home, the fortunes of football teams and football players in India don’t seem to be looking up. The English Premiership, the best marketed of the European Leagues, is firmly entrenched in the minds of the football fans. Today, Manchester United and Liverpool have more fans in India than the Kolkata-based East Bengal, or Mohun Bagan, or the five-time Indian National League champion, Dempo (Goa).

Buoyed by the mass popularity, the European clubs and their global sponsors have now decided to make a beeline here and maximise their reach to tap the economic potential of the ever-growing Indian market. Man United, in association with hospitality and real estate conglomerate Mirah Group, is already running heavily-crowded football cafes across the country apart from conducting an annual school soccer tournament. Other clubs like Liverpool and Real Madrid are operating franchisee academies with Indian partners and Italian giant Inter Milan is soon to launch its fully residential academy in the campus of the Mathagondapalli Model School in Hosur, Tamil Nadu.

The All-India Football Federation (AIFF), is now hoping to fuel the development of the game by exploiting this new age desi interest. Jefferson Slack, Global Football Head at IMG, AIFF’s commercial partner, told the BBC: “Indians love football and can play football. If you buy into that premise, then you know we will be successful.”

The management company is hoping to strike it big with its inaugural eight-city franchisee league, slated to kick-off in September this year. The Indian Super League, with Bollywood icons and cricket stars as team owners, is expected to kickstart the football revolution. Improved pitch and stadium conditions, better packaging and the proposed presence of retired international stars like Thierry Henry, Hernan Crespo and Robert Pires should draw the crowds back to the Indian football grounds. The world administrator, FIFA, too has done its part and awarded India the hosting rights for the 2017 FIFA under-17 World Cup.

So, as the world conspires to wake up the “sleeping giant”, it’s also time for us to become equal partners in creating our sporting destiny. Dreaming alone won’t help us qualify for Qatar 2022.

So far, yet so near

Many in India wait in excited anticipation as the clock chimes midnight. Even on weekdays. Football from Europe, broadcast at odd hours here because of the continental time zone, keeps more than half of India’s football fans hooked to the television well past their bedtime.

The viewership data, particularly of the English Premier League (mercifully the EPL game timings are usually not as obnoxious), is ever increasing and the official telecaster of the Premiership has even launched Hindi commentary of select games to cash in on the popularity. Newspapers and magazines alike have more column space for games happening many seas away and almost every Indian household is familiar with the names and exploits of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Luis Suarez or Lionel Messi.

Manchester United, despite its fall from grace this season, occupies the position of pre-eminence, boasting the largest support base in the country. The English side has a fan club in every Indian metro and also in many Tier-II and III cities. Its largest unofficial fan community on Facebook has 240,342 likes with members regularly dissecting each and every on- and off-field move. ‘The Red Army in Chennai’ has hosted Manchester United game nights in the city, which were better attended than the local league game at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

Jerseys of clubs like United, Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona, sold at a premium by elite sports good manufacturers, are proudly flaunted. Cheap knockoffs too have made their entry in the market and are easily available in every corner to help fans sport their allegiance without burning a deep hole in their pocket.

From the fishing hamlets outside Puducherry to the monastic mountains in Pelling (Sikkim), kids or even young lamas play with the orb, dressed in a Manchester United or a Barcelona jersey, football in India is followed everywhere. Fidelity, however, is strictly divided.

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