Football, the sport of the working classes the world over, and its growth, is supposed to reflect the degree of equality in a society. It took roots in England during the industrial revolution, when the “mob” became organised and started competing with the elites and slowly knocked them off their perch. The elite still controlled the game and its “codes”, but its spread among the lower middle classes led to a football revolution, lending strength and muscle to English and European sides.
In India, the game was introduced by the colonial masters through its army and filtered down to become a mass sport. But unlike England, where the industrial revolution and its spread among the masses went hand in hand, no such thing happened in India and despite its popularity, it has failed to produce teams that could compete with the best. It may have given hope in the fifties and sixties but an unequal society, where poverty is endemic, infrastructure poor, no concrete youth programme and the club structure itself not geared to throw up talent, football has remained at the margins.
India’s performance in the U-17 World Cup, despite a spirited display by the boys, was yet another reminder how far behind we are. We would be deluding ourselves if we mistake the huge, even unprecedented crowd at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium as a sign of a resurgence of Indian football. They were in tune with the flavor of this season, nationalism. Today, anything to do with India is to be adored and made to look glorious and larger than life. 'Play-station' boys who are loyal fans of Man U or Arsenal and would not even know the bare truths of Indian football, were present in large numbers, cheering for India. It was revealing that their reference points were not Indian leagues or players, but had all to do with EPL or the Spanish league.
Most in the crowd were hardly aware that the Indian junior team is a collection of players from families and regions that the Indian followers of the foreign leagues hardly relate with. It is this working class that forms the bulk of Indian players. Woeful lack of infrastructure, money and opportunities is a giant barrier for them.
India’s youth programme that started around 2012 is inadequate to overcome this challenge, with just one academy in Goa run by the federation. There was a proposal to establish these academies in four regions, but so far, one has not heard of any progress on that front. Northeast, the hub of the sport, can produce exceptional talent, but lack of resources is a problem like in the rest of the country.
The clubs provide little opportunity to U-19 players, keeping them on the bench, where they rust and fade away. They don’t have any qualitative youth programme either. The glitzy ISL may be good to watch, but unless there is space for junior talent to compete, it is not going to serve much purpose. Even the I-League faces similar problems, where young talent spends more time watching than playing.
It is not that there is no money in Indian football. An average player in the leagues makes around `40 lakh a year, a few more, and that is a lot more than they can make by playing in Asian leagues or in European second division. As a result, they prefers to play in India and not ply their trade outside and improve their game.
But this is a minor blip in the larger context and unless the federation, clubs, the government and sponsors join hands and concentrate on the grassroots, widen its reach and spend on children of the vast regions of this country, the nationalistic Indian will never fulfill his dream of seeing its national anthem being played at the biggest stage: The World Cup.