Joseph S. Blattter, former FIFA president, on his first visit to India termed it ‘a sleeping giant’. His successor Gianni Infantino went one step ahead and said the giant had woken up following the successful conduct of the 2017 Under-17 FIFA World Cup and popularity of the three-year-old Indian Super League (ISL).
Football, indeed, has woken up in India and its resurgence can be seen in Kerala too. Sachin Tendulkar and his team Kerala Blasters have brought back the football fans. The game is enjoying unprecedented popularity and patronage in the State after several years.
Decline of the game
For long, Kerala, along with Bengal, was one of the few States in India where football bossed over cricket in popularity. Premier Tyres, Travancore Titanium, Kerala Police and State Bank of Travancore enthralled a generation of football fans in the State. The decline of these teams and the State’s long title drought in the country’s premier football championship — the Santosh Trophy — saw football lose ground to cricket. India’s title triumph in the 1983 Prudential World Cup sparked a cricket revolution. The goalposts on the fields were quickly replaced by three sticks masquerading as stumps and the willow game entered the conscience of the youth at the cost of football.
Though the game was still popular in Malabar region thanks to ‘Sevens’ football, it was generally on the decline in the State. The strict implementation of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) norms by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) made it hard for sides like SBT (now SBI), Kerala Police, Travancore Titanium and KSEB to compete in the I league and in tournaments run by the AIFF. Kerala, in the meantime, earned the image of being the graveyard of professional clubs. At least five clubs — FC Kochin, Chirag United (formerly Viva FC), Malabar United, Eagles FC and Josco FC — which were started with much fanfare, died a slow death for want of patronage even as the Kerala Football Association looked westward. The State started losing quality players who began to ply their trade outside the State and, with no significant grassroots development programme, the KFA was not helping the game to develop in the State. The interest was sustained by a few odd academies and, as a result, the game was restricted to certain pockets in the State.
Vision India project
The AFC’s Vision India project, implemented in Kerala in 2008, finally awakened the dormant grassroots programme in the State. For a change, the project was wisely implemented in pockets where the game was popular and it was a big success in the coastal belt region in Thiruvananthapuram and in the soccer crazy northern districts of Kerala. A case in point was Pozhiyoor, a fishing hamlet bordering Kerala and Tamil Nadu in Thiruvananthapuram. The panchayat produced at least 10 Santosh Trophy players who were initiated into the game by the Vision India project. But lack of follow-up schemes by the KFA and the Kerala State Sports Council, which had initially funded the scheme, saw the end of the project.
Dearth of tournaments
Kerala, which at times contributed four to five players to the national squad, did not have a single player in the Indian football team for many years. I.M. Vijayan, arguably the best footballer the State has ever produced, attributes this to the absence of I league teams in the State. Moreover, popular all-India tournaments such as the G.V. Raja Trophy, Sree Narayana Cup, Chackolas Trophy, Mammen Mappillai Trophy, and Sait Nagjee Trophy, which were a rage in the State in the Seventies, became defunct and the interest in the game could not but be on a downward spiral. But the Indian Super League, promoted by Reliance group’s IMG, sparked a revival of interest in the game when it named Kochi as one of the franchisees of the city-based venture. And when Sachin Tendulkar bought the Kochi franchise and named it Kerala Blasters, it triggered the second football revolution in Kerala.
Football fans accepted the club with open arms and, within a few months, Kerala Blasters became the most popular football club in the country with a fan base in excess of 10 million. The sea of yellow at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kaloor in Kochi rooting for the side has proved to be a sporting spectacle. The unexpected success of the Kerala Blasters, which reached the finals in the inaugural year in 2014, also immensely contributed to the new found popularity of the game. Summer coaching camps started attracting more children. Parents, who now realised that playing football had a future, started queueing up with their wards at these camps. From sun-drenched beaches to marshy lands, youngsters started dribbling football in every available space. The State was in the grip of a football fever. Several football academies have since then mushroomed in the State.
The Under-17 World Cup, hosted by India early last year, was an eye-opener for the AIFF, which realised the need to have a proper grassroots development programme. Following up on a FIFA directive, the AIFF started the Under-13, Under-15 and Under-18 I leagues. The governing body also made it compulsory for ISL and I league teams to start grassroots programmes. Kerala Blasters, the Kochi-based ISL club, has since 2014 started 25 football schools with the objective of providing grassroots-level training for students of different age groups across the State. The latest Kerala Blasters school, which started functioning at Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram, was inaugurated by David James, Kerala Blasters chief coach, just last week. The centre will have 20 trainees who will be given coaching in the weekends. Overall, Kerala Blasters has some 1,500 schoolchildren on its rolls in the football schools across the State. The club has also a tie-up with the KFA and more centres will be opened in other districts in the coming months.
Gokulam FC, the only club from Kerala to figure in the I League, has also started an academy to nurture latent talent. The club opened its first centre in Malappuram district and the response has been overwhelming. The MSP Academy was launched by former footballers I.M. Vijayan and U. Sharaf Ali and has already earned two-star status from the AIFF. It is currently taking part in the Under-15 I league. The SEPT Academy in Kozhikode has kept the grassroots development alive in the district. Red Star Academy in Thrissur, Kovalam FC and Thiruvananthapuram Football Academy in Thiruvananthapuram are all now active in nurturing talent. What is surprising is that there is no shortage of trainees in these academies as there are around 60 to 70 children undergoing football coaching in these centres. The KFA was among the first State associations to follow the AIFF directive to start a junior academies’ leagues for Under-10 to Under-18 categories. The KFA had also taken the initiative to start D licence programme for coaches and allot coaches to academies.
Heartening response
Former Kerala player and SBT coach N.M. Najeeb, who works as coach in the Trivandrum Football Academy, agrees that football has made a comeback in the State and, more importantly, caught the imagination of the middle class. “I for one strongly believe that a game can progress only if it catches the attention of the middle class. In this era of nuclear families, it is heartening to see parents taking the risk by allowing their kids to play football, which was unimaginable a few years ago,” he says.
The increase in the number of children playing the game now is a good augury for the future as quality comes only through quantity. The spark triggered by Kerala Blasters will take a few more years to yield results, but there is no mistaking the fact that football has made a comeback in the State.
