Indian national team without enough international friendlies

Indian National Team

 The scenario of a sport in any country can be understood just by looking at its position in the international ranking table. As per the latest update, India is 145^th in FIFA rankings. The neighboring countries like China (95) and Japan (37) are way ahead of us. The shocker was that the countries like Afghanistan (139) and Tajikistan (114) were also ahead of us. The ranks of neighboring countries do not make me feel jealous, but for purely many “footballing reasons” it worries me.

The only way to increase the standings is by playing international matches on every given FIFA dates. Last international match India played was on March 6 2013, against Myanmar in AFC Challenge Cup. If we look at the below given table, India has just played 5 international matches in last 11 months. FIFA even refused to accept the match played against Cameroon (B) as a valid one.

 India went unprepared and lost the AFC challenge cup against lower ranked teams like Myanmar and Bangladesh, which resulted in disqualification from 2015 Asia Cup.  

Opponent	Opponent teams rank	Date	Result
Myanmar	165	March 6, 2013	Lost 1-0
Guam	177	March 4, 2013	Won 4-0
Chinese Taipei	176	March 2, 2013	Won 2-1
Palestine	150	February 6. 2013	Lost 4-2
Cameroon (B)	NA	September 2, 2012	Won 2 (4)vs. 2 (5)

    

The current national team coach, Win Kovermans, has repeatedly reiterated the importance of playing international matches in FIFA dates, but AIFF has failed to fulfill his requests. The other major issue is the quality of opponents we face; all the 5 teams mentioned above are ranked below India according to FIFA. Even a positive result against them won’t help the rankings to come up, but it is definitely good to start with.

The consistency of playing on FIFA dates and increase in the ranking is important for many reasons. The impact can be seen in three different forms:

• Investment: If we look at the current national team, they do not have any shirt sponsors. The corporate houses are not ready to invest because the team hardly plays any matches in international arena.       
• Players: As per the rules of many European countries, players of lower ranked teams are not provided with a work permit. So as per the current ranking, Indian players cannot represent any European clubs.
• Team: Currently the national team squad spends very less time together and hence there seems to be very less coordination among players.   

New national team jersey without sponsor

India is about to play a friendly against Tajikistan on 14^th August, followed by SAFF cup in September 2013. So I hope the trend continues and AIFF start providing quality opponents on every international FIFA dates. This move will also increase the viewership for Indian football.

(I request everyone to watch the match against Tajikistan and also support India in the SAFF cup.) 

Tajik promo for the Tajikistan vs India international friendly on Wednesday, August 14 in Khujand!

I-League clubs and Social Media

I league clubs using social media

I League, the national football league of India, have never been able to reach to a national level till now. It is true that they have received an ample amount of sympathy and commitment from the government for taking the league to the next level. So knowing the pace at which the government works it will suicidal for the clubs to be solely dependent on AIFF.

The football lovers in India like to read more about Manchester United than our very own Mohun Bagan. Reach and popularity being the major issue, why can’t the clubs by themselves make some moves to reach the people. There are various social platforms through which a sporting entity can receive both attention and publicity. Social media platforms being absolutely free and a shopping mall filled with potential audience is the best place to start with. This medium can be a great alternative to reach out to the youth to encourage participation and viewership.  Let us have a look at some of the clubs using social media sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

I have shortlisted 6 top clubs for this study, namely Churchill Brothers, Dempo FC, Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, Pune FC and Shillong Lajong.

Facebook Stats:

Club name	Total Followers	Average posts per day	People talking about it	Rating for their about us page ( 1to 5)
East Bengal	897,256	4	11,662	3
Mohun Bagan	59,990	5	12,308	4
Pune FC	55,329	6	1,150	3
Shillong Lajong	73,197	6	4,121	2
Dempo FC	7,408	1	85	1
Churchill Brothers	2,777	2	222	1

Twitter Stats:

Club name	Total Followers	Average tweets  per day	Total tweets
East Bengal	2,261	3	1,758
Mohun Bagan	1,773	3	5,599
Pune FC	2,153	6	5,241
Shillong Lajong	650	3	1,399
Dempo FC	NA	NA	NA
Churchill Brothers	791	3	1,269

YouTube Stats:

Club name	Total Subscribers	Total videos posted	Total views
East Bengal	26	6	4,315
Mohun Bagan	31	27	5,970
Pune FC	324	371	121,029
Shillong Lajong	116	51	20,753
Dempo FC	NA	NA	NA
Churchill Brothers	NA	NA	NA

As the numbers are crystal clear, I will not explain it further. The point I want to make is, if newly formed clubs like Pune FC and Shillong Lajong can work towards developing their online presence why can’t other clubs do. All the other clubs have failed to create an impactful social media existence. 

It is easy to follow the rhetoric that government does not do anything, but it is important that the clubs do something upfront to attract audiences. Indian Football clubs need to tighten up their screws to be more creative and follow on the path of big clubs like Manchester United and Chelsea to increase awareness around Indian Football. 

Social media is a free platform and the clubs must definitely take extra efforts in exploring the benefits out of it. The experts say that the country has bright prospects for football, so it is ‘better late than never'.

   

Is IPL style league the need of the hour?

I League vs IPL style league

India developing as one of the hottest prospects for football in the world, the number of business oriented plans coming forward is increasing.  The AIFF and its marketing partner IMG-Reliance have proposed to hold a city-based franchise league on the lines of popular Indian Premier League (IPL) in cricket. The tournament is expected to feature as-yet-unnamed international and local stars. But the I-league clubs have declined to release their players for the tournament.

The role of AIFF and IMG Reliance is to develop the sport in the country, rather than trying to drive money out of it. The idea of having a fancy league with European stars will overshadow the work done by the I-League clubs for over 10 years for gaining popularity. The new league will eventually supersede the I-League and cause the slow death of existing clubs. The I-League was here well before IMG-Reliance and unfortunately, all this is about money and I think it would have an adverse effect on the I-League.

A similar thing happened in Indonesia with two domestic leagues in place, the Indonesian Premier League and the Indonesia Super League, and it threatened the sport in that country. Finally the FIFA interfered and didn’t sanction the idea of having two leagues. India cannot bear and handle any such setbacks in near future.  

The new league is expected to bring in names like David Beckham, Robert Pires and Fabio Cannavaro. These introductions will surely grab attention but it will just be momentarily. The players coming in will either be retired or semi retired. So it won’t help if you bring in retired or semi-retired players to grab a few eyeballs for a minute.

IMG Reliance must rather spend money and bring in investors in developing the current club. They must increase the salary of the players, increase the infrastructure etc. These things will help in making the league more competitive and increasing the quality of players. But unfortunately IMG- Reliance, a business firm, may not get an instant return on investment by this move.  So such a move by the organization is highly unlikely.

Football is a completely different sport when compared to cricket.  A league for 2 months may be apt for cricket but when it comes to football it must be for around 8 to 9 months. The players will end up having fatigue issues after playing around 20 matches in span of 2 months.  So ultimately the players will start under-performing in I-League after the new tournament.

IPL itself is receiving criticisms from the pundits for spoiling the charm of established game like Cricket in the country. So I wonder how such a league will help in improving the condition of a not yet developed sport in the country.  

What if Wayne Rooney was ever an Indian Footballer?

Wayne Rooney 

Wayne Rooney, charismatic England international, is one of the finest players the world has ever seen. The player has an incredible fan following throughout the globe and has achieved almost everything which other protagonist in his field failed to do. I have specially assumed Wayne Rooney to be part of this scenario because he is always bound with controversies and that qualifies him to be an Indian sportsman.

I would like to bring in some of the events which could have possibly happened, if he was ever part of Indian National Team.

The star in the blue jersey has all started waving his magic for the national team.  He has now turned out to be more popular than Sachin Tendulkar (but still far behind Rajnikanth). The people are now slowly turning their attention towards football from cricket. Rooney has now become more important for media compared to Dhoni.

Some of the series of things which would have happened are as follows:

Wayne Rooney linked up with Poonam Pandey:

If any sportsman is popular in India then they have to be ultimately linked up with a Bollywood star. So Poonam Pandey, a model very close to sporting fraternity for all wrong reasons, is perfect for this. The stories about them being in relationship are fueling in tabloids and have become one of the major events in the country.

 Wayne Rooney in a reality show:

How can reality show producers waste this opportunity? We have already seen Baichung Bhutia in ‘Jhalak Dikhlaja’, so Rooney cannot miss this opportunity. The whole country is now watching Rooney dancing on some Bollywood numbers. This has resulted in skipping his practice sessions, leading it to a battle with team management.

Rooney in a rally with Congress:

If popular and with controversies, one is qualified to become a politician in India. Rooney having these special qualities has now automatically become part of a political rally. In his speech he would have claimed that, “in his childhood he never had a ground to play, but when congress came to power he got football grounds and that is why he has reached this heights today.” He would have appealed the masses to vote for congress.

In the end Rooney hang his boots.

This must have seemed to be funny but this is what happens in India. The reason behind this blog was not to show the negativity in the country. This was a prior warning to all Indian Footballers who are all ready to be part of fame and fortune in near future.

The love for football is increasing, recently in Facebook I saw 1123 comments on news related to Indian football and 2225 people liking it. It is clearly evident that football is getting popular in India. This seems to be a good indication but as it said, “More the power more the responsibility.”

I would like to apologize if this blog has hurt sentiments of any person!

A lighter look towards Indian football

Indian Football

While starting with the first post on my blog, bombardment of highly technical stuff about Indian football won’t help. So in this blog let me just fantasize about what developments we want to see in coming years. I know the word fantasize is a word used for too much of imagination, but the condition of the sport in the country do need a bit of fantasizing at this moment. Because someone has rightly said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”

So in this blog I will talk about the 5 basic changes which I want to see in the sport happening:

   1.       Organized I–League: Every country has its own league; the league in India has never seemed to be organized. So the first thing which must be changed is the way I-League is conducted. The league should become more professional and should make efforts to bring in both audience and investors. A proper league will bring in more competition and a much better fan following for the clubs. We must follow development models adopted by countries like China and Japan, where the sport is developing rapidly.

   2.       A competitive and better AIFF:  The chairman of AIFF, Praful Patel, has been same from past 3 years.  The condition of sport has not developed according to its potential but still there is no change in the leadership. So there must be a strong opposition party which will keep the administration on their toes.

  3.       Television rights and Branding: Branding of the sport is done in a very stereotyped manner. There are no efforts made by the organization to bring in more investors. The television rights of I league is given to Ten Action, but the quality in which the game is displayed make is look very tacky and boring. If we have to develop the game, we have to make it more popular. So branding and television rights should be targeted keenly and precisely.

  4.       Proper facilities and grass root developments: If we want the quality to be improved then the government should bring in proper training facilities and improved coaching staff for the players. In India there are very few grounds which meet FIFA standards. So it is highly unlikely to see good international matches played in the country. Grass root developments are very important because we cannot expect immediate changes in the sport at this moment. We have to look for a long term plan and grass root development can make things possible in coming years.

  5.       Club loyalty: I wish I could see people wearing jerseys of Sunil Chhetri rather than Cristiano Ronaldo. There is no love for the club both among the players and people. A player playing for Dempo FC does join Churchil Brothers, a rival club. I can never imagine Steven Gerrard playing for Manchester United and Ryan Giggs playing for Manchester City.  So one must stick to a single club and must work hard for the upbringing of the club. So lack of loyalty for clubs hampers the development of the sport and its credibility among the audience.

So these were the basic changes which I wish to see.  Realistically I cannot expect India to play world cup in coming 5 years, but till that time we can at least create a set of audience/fans that are eagerly waiting for the moment to arrive.