Playing for 'kicks'

Sriram Ranganathan

Ever wonder if any of the office-bearers of the association managing Indian football would be feeling even an iota of shame? For India's performance in International football over the years being so pathetic? For the state of the Indian footballers being so pathetic? For the sense of apathy and dejection that the Indian football fans have been wallowing in for so many years? For the disgrace called The Millenium Cup, which was supposed to be one of the gala footballing spectacles in Asia?

I don't think so. Not to any of the questions above. After all why should they? What has happened that hasn't been happening for so long? The same people, same old faces, same old blunders, same old inefficiency, same old everything. No reason to be ashamed there.

I can't recall when Indian soccer last had it good. They tell me that many years back Indian footballers made waves at the Olympics. We used to be very good at the Asian level too. Sadly, these are things that I have to rely on history to know and understand. In my lifetime I have only seen a pathetic Indian football team, which loses to everyone with legs and a football managing body in the country whose workings assures me that things will be no different in the times to come.

Can you believe that when we move from around 120 or something in the world rankings to around 115, it is an event that is reported in the newspapers as an improving Indian football scenario? I don't know the current world ranking but I am sure whatever it is, it will be hailed as an improvement in the standards if we have moved up a notch or two from obscurity to wilderness and hailed as maintaining our global position if we still remain in that obscurity. This is one of the prime reasons that we would never improve. The will to improve and the drive to succeed is simply not there. The vision is missing and no one feels that is in any way strange.

We have an AIFF president who has been at his post for about 12 years now. In that time Indian football has fluctuated between poor, pathetic and horrible. As a reward for his tremendous efforts, he was recently re-elected to his post. Should we really crib and complain? Do we really give a damn about Indian football? Ask the administrators of Indian football their side of the story and they would whine and moan about lack of funds and sponsorship and their tremendous efforts towards improving the entire scenario. A simple question: if in 12 years Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi couldn't do anything about it, what makes him or us think that he would be able to do something in the next couple of years? What makes him and us think that someday we would play against international sides without knowing we would lose. The margin of defeat depends only on how interested/bored our opponents are.

The re-election of Dasmunshi just states one thing plainly and simply - we elect our sports administrators the way we elect our politicians. It might be seen as an irony that Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi is also a politician. It doesn't matter what the person has done in his capacity to earn election. It only matters what bribes and inducements can be given to the people who ensure his election. These people are the other office-bearers of the state and association units, themselves people who have been sitting in their jobs without doing one bit of good and who don't mind casting their votes for the highest bidder. A shameless hierarchy rather than there being only shamelessness at the top.

Possibly the sad state of Indian football does not evoke painful chords in the viewing public because apart from places like Calcutta, there really is no other place where football is such a craze. Interest yes, craze no. Even in Calcutta there is more of an interest over the East Bengal and Mohan Bagan teams playing each other and it is doubtful whether the Indian team's poor performance evokes too many emotions. If this sort of thing were happening in cricket, and many will say it is happening in cricket right now, stadiums all around the country would have been razed and M.P.s would be sitting in Star TV studios for recording of "The big fight" shows, talking about it and expressing their anguish.

What I can conclude from what I have been seeing on TV and reading in the newspapers is that Indian football administrators are a bunch of shameless losers. Shameless, because despite their lack of achievements and the absolute knowledge of things remaining the same in the future, they still bring out statements, such as Dasmunshi talking about working for the good of Indian football after being re-elected for the umpteenth time. Losers, because anyone can kick them in the face and walk off without their having the courage or conviction to lash back.

Let's take a look at the Millenium Cup organized recently. A good move by all means and the right way to go towards giving our Indian team exposure that it so badly needs. Slight reflection would throw cold water on the exultation immediately. The Indian team does not play international football that often. The players play for their respective clubs and are not used to playing with each other. They are woefully short of international standards in terms of skills, fitness levels and teamwork. In fact they are woefully short of even club standards of other countries in terms of skills, fitness levels and teamwork. Our able administrators selected the team at the last minute, gave them a short camp and threw them against the teams participating who promptly creamed them. In a group of three, India played the first match against Iceland and the second against Uruguay, lost both by identical 3-0 margins and were out of the Cup and out of the "exposure" scenario till the Olympic qualifiers slated later this year.

Was that really so surprising? Would Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, the president of the AIFF be able to say with honest conviction that the result surprised him?

It is this honest conviction that is so sadly missing in our administrators. They are the loudest in terms of talking and surely for each argument by critics they would have ten counter arguments which would be presented forcefully. Most of the arguments would be cock and bull stories and everybody including the people giving the statements would be aware of the fact. But just like Mr. Jaywant Lele hardly gives a fig what responsibilities are expected of him as a powerful BCCI secretary, these administrators give a fig as to what anyone thinks of their functioning.

The perks of having jobs in sports administration in India are tremendous and to make the job profile even more lucrative, there is absolutely no accountability. Move over ESOPS.

Let's us also talk about the teams participating in the Millenium Cup. When we complain about there being no money in Indian football, is there any point in holding a high prize-money tournament for second rate teams from across the world? Let's agree before continuing that even those second rate foreign teams are better than our first teams. But when we are spending so much money, could we at least not demand quality?

Romania, Yugoslavia, Uruguay, Japan and Chile are world class teams, so why are we giving them large amounts of money to send in their second and third teams? Where are the stars, the people we see on TV who play in Italian, English and Spanish soccer leagues?

Can we send our cricket team to any one-day tournament with Devang Gandhi and Nikhil Haldipur opening in place of Sachin and Sourav, and with Kambli in the number three spot instead of Dravid? With Dodda Ganesh, David Johnson (where did he go anyway?) and Ashish Kapoor as bowlers in place of Zaheer, Agarkar, Prasad and Kumble? This may be an exaggeration but we may be docked our appearance money or refused entry into the grounds.

What then are we doing about Iraq, which withdrew at the last minute, or Cameroon, who refused at the last minute to come unless they were given more money. I doubt something will happen, one of the reasons being that we are used to being treated like dirt and even if we weren't, we just couldn't care less.

Our topmost footballer, Bhaichung Bhutia plays in the English seocnd division league for the club Bury. He is the only Indian player to be playing anywhere abroad, at least anywhere abroad where it is considered worthwhile to play. For a long time, his ball handling skills and his stamina were unacceptable to the managers there to put him in their starting line ups but with plenty of hard work and dedication, he is currently figuring in their scheme of things. Before he left to join the club in England, we considered him the best we have and a genius. Our national best not good enough for a second division club side. We also have a Vijayan, who we call "the black pearl", and Basudeb Mondal, who the current Uzbek coach considers being of international class.

Sorry to say we will never know if Mondal is indeed of the class he is attributed with or whether Vijayan is a pearl against opposition that is not so horrible as that currently available in the country. We won't know because nothing will change. The money and sponsorship for organizing the Millenium Cup could have been used in bettering the state of our footballers all over the country, in improving the stadiums and the infrastructure and in getting good coaches to train our players at the club levels and at the school levels. We could still do that, as any big tournament would always generate big revenues, but we all know that won't happen. Indian football will continue to lie in the depths of the garbage can, the class and skills of the players in our national leagues will continue to be abysmal, we will play International matches about once a year, get thrashed and claim we lack exposure and the Dasmunshis of this country will continue to make fools of all of us.

The next international assignment for the Indian team would be the Olympic qualifiers for which the team would be selected about a week or two in advance and a camp arranged where the players would be expected to miraculously transform into skilled athletes. They would then go to the qualifiers and get thrashed by everyone they play because for those other countries, being 120th in the world is not acceptable. For us, it is destiny. Take my word for it. Call me Nostradamus but frankly speaking, it doesn't take too keen a sight to predict that one.