India’s efforts at bringing its football to the global level received encouragement from former Spanish world cupper and Real Madrid legend Fernando Hierro, who felt that the sport will see an exponential growth in the country.
“India as a country has great potential and I think it will have the biggest growth in football in future. I can tell it from my experience of visiting India some time back,” said Hierro, who is a brand ambassador of LaLiga, during a media interaction.
“The sport will further grow depending on the objectives and planning laid out for the tournament. I think training of coaches is very important for the growth and the tournament needs to have a consolidated structure and proper vision for the future,” he said about the development happening with ISL.
“I have colleagues who are working in India and there are players in India whom I have known for a long time. I think the growth of football reflects the global growth of India, which is a big country.”
Turning a new page
Moving back to LaLiga, Fierro said that it was turning a new page in its development after introducing effective financial control for clubs. “I think the huge gap that existed between the teams have narrowed down a lot. The financial control implemented by LaLiga in recent times did help the comparatively smaller sides improve their positions.
“You can make that out from the fact that the so called big sides are often seen losing or drawing with smaller sides and the huge margin of wins managed by the giants have also come down,” he said.
Fierro also appreciated the emergence of new talent. “The best thing about LaLiga is the quality of players, especially the younger ones, the academy graduates and overall the competitive level of the tournament,” he said.
