When India take on Pakistan in Mohali in five days time, the subcontinent will come to a stand-still as a place in the Cricket World Cup Final goes on the line.
The importance of the match won’t be lost on the players, who know that this is a rivalry steeped in the social and political relations of the two nations, channelled fiercely through bat and ball.
Only hardcore football fans though would have known that 24 hours before Yuvraj Singh inspired India to a historic victory over defending champions Australia in Motera, India and Pakistan met in Petaling Jaya.
Goal posts and 18-yard boxes took the place of stumps and a batting crease, as the Indians under English manager Bob Houghton secured their place at the 2012 AFC Challenge Cup with a 3-1 win.
Indian football fans anticipated the match as much as their cricket equivalents no doubt did the always-entertaining meeting between their country and Australia on the cricket pitch.
Yet 3-1 win wasn’t broadcast live and your average Indian would have been more informed about the over-by-over score in the quarter-final meeting between Pakistan and the West Indies than the mere existence of a football match involving their own country.
Cricket’s place as India’s number one sport is conspicuous and the talk over the next couple of days will be of Singh’s memorable half-century and the legendary Ricky Ponting’s career-defining century in his final World Cup match.
Barely a newspaper column was given to the India-Pakistan football meeting and according to Goal.com India’s Rahul Bali, the situation would have been much the same even if the World Cup hadn’t been on at the same time.
Describing football in the country as a sport that isn’t well broadcasted or marketed – save for European football, which contrastingly attracts great attention – one wonders just why the game hasn’t been embraced, given its long and rich history.
In the 1850s the first recorded football match in India took place between the Calcutta Club of Civilians and the Gentlemen of Barrackpore, while the Calcutta Football Club was formed in 1872; just 15 years after Sheffield Football Club, which is recognized by the English FA and FIFA as the world’s first Association Football club.
This history and the game’s golden period during the 50s seems to have acted as a double-edged sword: evidence of the potential for the game in India but also a former glory that the game has for too long tried to live off.
Currently the game is run by the All India Football Federation, an organization made up of elected officials from across the country, many of whom lack the requisite knowledge or initiative to take football forward.
 "The AIFF has an Executive Committee... most of these individuals have been around for long and haven't been brought in anything valuable on the table either in terms of ideas or anything tangible... Praful Patel [pictured], the president, has done relatively better... and focused on developing infrastructure." |
“The AIFF has an Executive Committee... most of these individuals have been around for long and haven't brought in anything valuable on table either in terms of ideas or anything tangible,” Bali says.
“They are just in there thanks to some elections which are merely a con job.
“Praful Patel, the president, has done relatively better... and has focussed on developing infrastructure.
“Kushal Das, the general secretary, has been recently appointed and is still understanding the basics of the game.
“[As for] the Executive Committee members, except for a couple of them, most are useless.”
It’s a damning assessment of the administration of the game but Bali isn’t only critical of his own country’s association.
The Vision Asia project which is one of the hallmarks of Mohamed Bin Hammam’s reign as Asian Football Confederation president is also criticized, Bali describing the program as one of the “biggest flops of [Mohamed] Bin Hammam’s tenure.”
One of the main problems plaguing football in India is the presence of short-sighted individuals running the game who aren’t receptive to change and are attached to their positions, lacking basic technical understanding of football. Within such a framework and given a lack of meaningful funding, Vision Asia has failed to have a tangible impact.
Rank unprofessionalism is a constant source of frustration for those who want to see football develop in the country, though the faith shown in national team boss Bob Houghton has been a rare positive over the past few years.
A somewhat controversial figure who divides opinion with his managerial style, Houghton has nonetheless held his post for five years, guiding India to three tournament victories and securing qualification for the 2011 Asian Cup.
Yet it is at club level that the key issues need to be tackled, with youth development programmes only existing on paper and the AIFF failing to seize initiative and outline a clearly defined mission.
The AFC’s half-hearted attempts to start up developmental programs are only short-term solutions, with the game’s lack of marketability meaning such initiatives only last for a year or two before collapsing due to a lack of investment from clubs who are only just getting by financially.
It is a stark contrast to the multi-billion dollar brand that is the Indian Premier League, aptly named given the popularity of its English football equivalent in the country.
Cricket’s lofty standards of marketing and financial power set a high standard for football, though the game owes it to itself to be something more given its origins.
The day that the name Bhaichung Bhutia resonates as much as that of Sachin Tendulkar is some way away, however.
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