Indian Football – Time To Wake Up

On 11 June, 2024 India played a qualifier match with Qatar and despite scoring first failed to qualify. There was huge confusion about Qatar’s first goal as it was an unfair award by the referee. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) complained to FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) but, perhaps, there was no response. A re-cap video that went viral clearly shows the ball going out of the Indian box and being dragged back by the Qatari players.

A few days later Boria Majumdar, the highly respected sports columnist, wrote a story in The Economic Times calling it “one of the worst refereeing howlers of recent times”. He went on to mention other such instances of India being at the receiving end in football by citing biassed refereeing decisions in
(a) the King's Cup match against Iraq last year and
(b) Mardeka Cup fixture against Malaysia.
Is there some sort of a conspiracy - by the great footballing nations club – to keep us out?

In my column (BW - 13 January ’24) I had mentioned that “Sports are transparent from start to finish. If you don’t agree with the rules, you are not allowed to play”; perhaps I was wrong! The instances of blatant abuse of laws, quoted by Majumdar, would make one think about the unfair world of the rich pushing out the poor and keeping them out of their elite circle. Similar instances of wrong decisions also happened against Mary Kom at the Tokyo Olympics and Nikhat Zareen at the last Asian Games. How come such things don’t happen against us in cricket? Well, let’s not forget BCCI is the world’s richest cricket body.

What do we need to do about this?
A recent movie Maidaan – a biopic on the life of the legendary football coach S. A. Rahim – beautifully captures our sad ‘barefoot performance’ of the 1-10 defeat against Yugoslavia, at Helsinki, after which Rahim was appointed the head coach by AIFF. Rahim managed to convince the influential Calcutta bosses to provide proper boots for the players and then set out to scout for good players. He found stars like P.K. Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Tulsidas Balaram, Jarnail Singh and others from all over the country, put together and trained a strong team that finished fourth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.

The AIFF’s ‘influential bosses’ were not happy about dilution of Bengalis in the team; they just couldn’t accept the idea of an ‘All India Team’ that Rahim was trying to put together. In any case he continued with his efforts despite all opposition. Unfortunately, in the Rome Olympics (1960) we lost both league matches and this gave another whip to the ‘bosses’ to beat the Hyderabadi coach with.

The 1962 Asian Games at Jakarta, were not too far and Rahim was excited about the training and form of his boys, who loved him and followed his advice without any questions. When the GOI wanted to cut back on the budget for the contingent to Jakarta, the ‘bosses mafia’ suggested that the football team could be dropped! This was heartbreaking for the great coach; he managed to get an audience with Prime Minister Morarji Desai, pleaded with him and got a clearance for his beloved team.

Once there, everything went wrong – continued opposition and open sniggering by the Calcutta Babu Moshais, serious injuries to two key players, threatening protests by Indonesian fans who were offended by the senior GOI official Sodhi’s remarks against Indonesia for sending back the Israeli team. Yet, solely because of his determination, belief in his team, inspiring them 24x7, not worrying about his own health (advanced stage lung cancer) and just not ready to give up, we bagged the gold medal – Indian football’s greatest triumph and vindication of the coach’s faith in his boys.

Our performance against Qatar shows that we are perhaps getting back to those golden days and may actually play in the next FIFA World Cup if only our team gets another great coach, all out support from the government and the AIFF. There’s need to empower the AIFF with objective leadership and adequate funds. The government must fight such instances of injustice by the powerful lobby that seems to be exercising pressure on the referees! India, under the present government, has to show its muscle, just as we have done in many other fields through diplomatic outreach at our dynamic EAM’s level. We can do it and we must.

Ills of our football management were succinctly brought out by the outgoing Croatian coach Igor Stimac in a two-hour media interaction. His outburst could be subjective and bitter as he was sacked late June due to our team’s disappointing results at the AFC Asian Cup and FIFA Qualifier. Yet, I see a tinge of truth in his remarks, and I quote “AIFF officials are never bothered about the players, everyone is more worried about their own personal interests. India needs twenty years to make progress”. This is what we need to set right and, I am sure, if the present government is serious, it can be done.
As the veteran journalist Indrajit Hazra recently wrote a very interesting piece in the ET, it seems we, as a nation, are yet not ready to make ‘Football’ a sacred goal for us! Every time there’s an international event like the ‘World Cup’ or ‘Euro’ the old question comes up “when will India…...?”. Our world rankings are abysmal – 124/210 in FIFA Men’s and 64/119 in case of Women; shameful bottom half in both. The detailed write up laments about various factors, such as while being an excellent ‘football spectating nation, India’s football enthusiasts have shown feeble signs that they want to belong to an excellent football playing nation.

Talent is there but the ecosystem, the culture is missing. Far too many times, the journey is broken for young, prospective footballers.
WE MUST DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO CHANGE THAT.