Football in India is still at the stage of underdevelopment. The national football team is languishing at 163rd position in the FIFA ranking. A country with more than one billion population fails to produce a team of eleven players who can represent India at the highest level. The major stakeholders of Indian football are often criticized due to their ineffective functioning. However, I strongly believe that a comprehensive model has to be suggested to change the dismal scenario of Indian football. In this blog, I would like to focus on establishing supply line of talents for Indian football by using the existing resources.
We often think of building infrastructure with all modern facilities for organizing sporting activities. The importance of developing high ended sporting infrastructure can never be ignored. But in football in India, talents are primarily recruited from the village and district areas. Thus, emphasis should be given on organizing events at the grass- root level by utilizing the existing infrastructure, i.e., the open grounds. The open grounds and the school grounds can be used to organize football tournaments involving the schools, villages and districts. The national and state bodies may appoint the former players or coaches to spot talents from these events. Arrangements should be made for nurturing these talents in various academies run by the sports bodies. For example, the Indian Football Association (IFA) of the state of West Bengal is running two football academies which can play a pivotal role in nurturing these talents. At the end of the training period, these players can be sold to the Clubs and a percentage of the selling amount can be retained by the academies for further development.
The top- ranked I- League clubs of India use to spend more than 95% of their revenue on players’ expenditures. For example, Mohun Bagan spent around Rs. 2 crores to recruit Odafa. It clearly reflects that these clubs have money which is spent on recruiting the established players. This may serve the short- term purpose of these clubs, but the long-term purpose will remain ignored. A part of this allocation can be spent on spotting and nurturing the football talents of the country for the larger interest of Indian football. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) should make it mandatory for these clubs to set up an academy or to maintain age specific teams throughout the year. If this strategy will be implemented, the clubs will be benefited in two ways:
i) These talents can be promoted to the senior team of the club.
ii) They can be sold to other clubs and a part of the selling amount can be retained by the club.
Therefore, this model provides an opportunity to generate revenue. The clubs should realize that setting up an academy and maintain age specific teams are not expenditure, but investment which will give return in future.
In this context, it is relevant to mention that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) designed the Club Licensing Criteria (CLC) for professionalizing the structure of football in India. The CLC is a list of 17/18 criteria on the basis of which a club is ebaluated and given the permission to enter in the I- League or to continue its participation. The CLC instructs the clubs to maintain at least two age- specific teams. The CLC is not yet being implemented effectively in India, but strict execution of this may play a pivotal role in changing the structure of football in India.
Sport is yet to be emerged as a career option in India. Lack of integration between education and sports acts as an impediment in providing a career path to the sports-persons, specially after their retirement from professional sports. Thus, a holistic approach has to be adopted for the overall development of the players. In my other articles, published in various sports websites, I discussed on this issue. The reader may read my article on ‘How to Broad- base Sports in India’ by following the link given below:
The same model can be followed to provide a comprehensive career direction to the youth of India to attract them towards sports.
In my next blog, I shall discuss the other developmental issues of Indian football.
