Even by Indian football’s ever-falling standards, the failure to beat Mauritius in the Intercontinental Cup was a new low. Mauritius are placed 179th in the FIFA rankings, but Manolo Marquez’s side failed to edge them on home soil. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, players would have hesitated to step out after such a result, fearing fan fury. Now, not many people care about Indian football.
So far, India have played nine matches this year, losing six and drawing three, and scoring a mere two goals. The rot has spread to age-group football as well, with India losing to Bangladesh in the U-20 SAFF Cup. Indian football has fallen into a rut. Can it get out of it?
“Nothing will happen until there is a radical overhaul of the system,” said Bhaskar Ganguly, speaking to RevSportz. The former India captain, who also served as a member of the court-appointed Committee of Administrators, implored the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to come up with a clear plan for grassroots development. He also urged the Federation to revive old tournaments.
“The way things have been going, I don’t see any future for Indian football,” said Ganguly. “(Foreign) coaches will come and go – mind, they are no Ciric Milovan (a Yugoslav football coach who made a serious impression in Indian football in the 1980s) – and occasionally we will win games against Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives and Bangladesh. But no tangible improvement will happen.”
The great goalkeeper lamented that Indian football has become a prisoner of the Indian Super League (ISL). “Nowhere in the world have I seen that a national team is selected on the basis of just one private tournament (read, ISL),” he said. “Only a handful of players are part of the national team set-up and they know there’s no one outside that set-up to challenge them. They feel comfortable. The ISL will not help Indian football get better. It doesn’t have the required standards. It is also a retirement home for the discarded foreigners, who in a way have been hampering the progress of local talent. We don’t have a quality striker to replace Sunil Chhetri, and there’s a reason for that.”
Ganguly emphasised on having a clear plan and vision for the future. “You have to revive old tournaments like Rovers Cup, Stafford Cup, Nagjee Trophy, Bordoloi Trophy to create a bigger talent pool,” he said. “The AIFF should direct every state association to have a local league and a knockout tournament, failing which their voting rights should be cancelled. The players need to play more matches. You can’t improve by playing just 20-odd matches in a season. It will take a lot of time to put Indian football back on the right track. To start with, a clear plan and programme is needed.”
India are currently placed 124th in the rankings. A radical improvement is unlikely until there’s firm focus on youth development. “This is what I have said many times, but my words fell on deaf ears,” Shyam Thapa, the former India striker who also served as the chairman of the AIFF technical committee, told RevSportz. “When we were playing, the Middle East was virtually non-existent in Asian and world football. We used to beat Japan and Korea. Now, there’s no comparison. They invested heavily on youth development, and we didn’t. I won’t say that Indian football’s revival is impossible, but to do that, the AIFF will have to go to the grassroots.”
To put things in perspective, the AIFF has slashed the budget for the U-17 national team in the current fiscal from Rs 4.42 crore to Rs 2.11 crore. The grassroots development and courses have taken a Rs 78-lakh hit, from Rs 1 crore to Rs 22 lakh.
Things may get much worse before they get better.