The Sports-India Community

How about if we do it with China like Korea did with Japan. Ask China to hold it in Tibet and we will hold it in Kolkata, Manipur, Srinagar and Arunachal Pradesh .. The teams fly across the Himalayas. OK, the final can go to Beijing/Shanghai and one SF in Kolkata. Anybody for thinking big? ... Put a bid in. China would hate the idea but there would be a lot of people shocked and supportive of it too. We have nothing to lose really. Of course, we share with China all the massive funds needed to buy the voters' votes

Jay

Hey, if China can coerce so many nations from not attending the Peace Nobel Prize ceremony, they can probably convince voters for a WC choice too. It is not a big deal for China to line up votes for something they want. BTW, India has decided to attend in defiance of Chinese wishes (and Pakistan has decided to stay away as has Afghanistan IIRC).

At last ,some good news for the beleaguered Indian football. All India Football Federation has signed a whooping 700Cr Deal with IMG-Reliance to manage football in India for the next 15 years.
http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/136/i ... n-football

Hi Indian football fans,

My name is Greg Welburn and I am a researcher at Teesside University, UK.

I am currently researching the Marketing of Indian football and the future of the I league;

During my research I would like to add the opinion of the people who matter, not the stars, not the AIFF but you the fans.

The research will take place via a questionairre, asking your opinion on the league, the AIFF, as well as your opinion on the future of the league and what it could do better.

If you would like to take part then please email me at greg.sanctuary@hotmail.co.uk

This is not a spam email, so dont worry about email overload, just one email will be sent to you and that will be the questionairre, please return to the above email address.
Your email address will not be shared with any other party.

For your participation I will pick two random winners out of a hat for a European Football strip of your choice.

Thanks for your time.

Greg Welburn

History of Indian Football:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-rSSDC8 ... r_embedded

There are 7 parts, the links are connected with this video on youtube.

Will Premier League Soccer make a positive impact in Indian football ?

http://www.indianfootballnetwork.com/bl ... plsvoting/

I don't know. They should not have limits on the number of foreigners, Indian players, and Bangali players should be able to play for whichever team they are signed by. That is, no catchment area. The matches should be in the largest cities in PaschimBanga: Kolkata, Haora, Durgapur, Asansol, Siliguri, and Bardhaman. Interestingly, they took out Durgapur, which is a large city and put in Midnapur. Maybe Durgapur is too close to Asansol and Bardhaman. If so, why not have the team play in Durgapur instead of Asansol. They should talk to Dalmiya to learn some business tactics to make it a success.

Lee is ready to take the role of a brand ambassador (of football) to promote game in India.

Paes says football is in his genes, he is keen to promote it

Can't hurt to have Leander do that, but what Indian football needs is not really "promotion". What it needs is for a few smart guys to figure out how to tap into the existing interest in football, but first by setting up the club system with decent facilities, and establishing a talent scouting system properly to find a decent set of players. A few players like the Jejes who can help win a few matches and move India into the top-60 or 75 in the world. Have at least 3 good stadiums for the national team to play, while we are at it (we have ONE stadium in all of India that works, if you can believe it!). These things do not need "promotion". If we get any type of decent result, like say even a top-8 finish in Asia in something and a few top-100 wins in friendlies, Indian football can automatically start to get into the sports fans' thoughts.

Indian sports fans are not fools. We have some of the most knowledgable sports fans in the world. They know when they see something that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, that it is a duck. No need to sell them snake oil. Our football team needs to be better, they need to see them playing in a nice stadium somewhere and they need to know that at least 3 or 4 of them Indian team payers are playing in good foreign leagues. Once those things happen, they will pay attention. I don't think Leander and even SRT or SRK can make them take a duck to be anything but a duck.

Of course I am going by the immense hope that those like sameer gave me a few months back in our discussion - that Indian kids in cities have truly started giving up on cricket and are into other sports thanks to all the world TV they see these days (though their interests are not necessarily in soccer, there is hopefully some fair interest there).... If useless gully cricket is still what rules Indian cities' and towns' kids, like it did for some 3 decades starting around 1975, then all bets are off.

Jay

Leaving aside cricket for a moment, the main reason India is struggling because the system is failing to turn enough good young talents into world class footballers. As others have previously mentioned, in the medium/long term, this is the only way to go. Like the Japanese and South Koreans, we need administrators who are really interested in improving football and are willing to do what it takes to get the job done. The Indian Arrows project is a really exciting project, and I was really expecting a core group of players to emerge from it within 4-5 years. But at the end of last season there has been some behind the scenes problems so I'm not sure how well this project is going to move forward. Currently, AIFF seems to be staffed with too many guys with big egos but no footballing credibility.

Besides physical facilities, we also need to improve the coaching infrastructure. We need to get more of the coaches licensed with the appropriate licensing bodies and upto par with their European & South American counterparts. Too many coaches in India are still using methods and ideas from past eras. And of course, there is corruption in the higher levels. Not sure if it has reduced in the past couple of years, but many good players have been asked to pay a bribe to be selected to the district/state level squads.

Lets get back to the point of popularity of cricket in India. Atleast in Bombay & Goa, there has been a massive surge in interest in football. There has been an explosion of fan clubs of foreign teams popping in many of the metro cities. I personally think that the Indian market is large enough to support both cricket & football. It doesn't have to an either/or situation. And now that many Indian companies are doing well, Indian football is seeing a bit more money than in the past.

And clearly developing top level performers once you have identified the talent at the lower levels is an ongoing problem in Indian sports. As we see from the recent performance of Cricket team, even the massive popularity and money in Cricket does not guarantee that we have lots of well developed top level talent.

Improvements in coaching and development (nutrition, physical training etc.) even just at the top level will make a significant difference even if it is available just at the top levels.

Wow, I found some great news for the devolopment of indian football: India to bid for 2017 U-17 FIFA World Cup !!!

And it looks like India will get this tournament because FIFA wants to take the next step to promote football in India.

Looking at the huge potential a country like India offers, world football's governing body FIFA is readying to grant the country the hosting rights for the 2017 U-17 World Cup, it is learnt.

The world body has asked the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to bid next month for the Under-17 World Cup. The FIFA executive committee will decide on the hosts in March.

Industry sources close to the developments, in earlier conversations with SportzPower had confidentially asserted that if India did bid, it was "almost certain" that the tournament would come to the subcontinent.

Although Jamaica and Guatemala have also expressed interest as host.

When news broke earlier this month that Fifa secretary general Jérôme Valcke, the second most powerful official in FIFA, was likely to come to India in the first week of April, this website had reported that a big announcement was expected during his visit that would give a huge boost to football advancement in the country....
The AIFF will also seek help from sports minister Ajay Maken to help with infrastructure since FIFA bears the cost of the tournament.

So we will get some modern football infrastrure which is fundamental for the development of football. The kids which are around 10-11years old now are our potential candidates for U17 national team.


Sources:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spor ... 692080.cms
http://www.sportzpower.com/?q=content/i ... fa-support
http://footballkerala.com/2012/02/19/ke ... world-cup/

That is good news, if we are awarded this tournament. But for this to be beneficial for Indian soccer it would still require the event to be publicized correctly, and for the infrastructure to be developed right & used right after the tournament. I would not be optimistic on either count in India.

Rousing quote from the FIFA chief

"To wake up a sleeping giant you need several alarm clocks. We have set up several alarm clocks. My tenure ends in 2015 but I won't leave FIFA until I see the sport established in the sub-continent of India," Blatter said.

http://www.rediff.com/sports/report/the ... 120309.htm