CHENNAI: India is perhaps the only country where the number of governing bodies far exceeds the number of the sports they govern. Volleyball, boxing, basketball — you name it, we’ve got at least two organisations fighting for control. And the latest in that list is a sport not many knew existed until a week ago — futsal.
The indoor variation of football is played with five players on each side. The sport had multiple governing bodies in India from as far back as 2007, when the Futsal Association of India (FAI) was formed as a challenge to the All Indian Football Federation’s authority over the sport. But the reason that no controversy erupted, was that no one cared. Futsal was less a game and more a concept waiting to be milked.
On Tuesday, the milkmen arrived, led by no less a legend than Luis Figo. The former Real Madrid man, looking as elegant in a suit as he did in a white jersey, announced the launch of a new league, the latest in the long list of IPL-mimics. Figo also announced himself as the president of Premier Futsal, a rather dramatic lowering of ambitions for someone who, until very recently, wanted to be FIFA president.
But that announcement was enough to alarm FIFA, who shook awake the AIFF with a letter announcing that the new league had nothing to do with them. The action was curious for a body which had declined to intervene in ‘India’s internal matter’ when the ISL was announced, but not without reason. FIFA faces a challenge on the global stage for control of futsal from the Asociación Mundial de Futsal (AMF), the successor of the organisation that had unilaterally governed the sport for decades, until 1985 when Sepp Blatter suddenly got interested.
The new league, it turned out, was associated with AMF whose affiliated national body was the FAI. “We’re affiliated to the oldest governing body of the game which has its own World Cups,” says Namdev Shirgaonkar, founder president of FAI, also a vice-president of AMF. “We’ve been trying to develop the game since 2010, hosting tournaments and providing training. Our last national championship was covered live by DD Sports. We view Premier Futsal as a great opportunity for our players to develop.”
The AIFF maintains the new tournament is as unofficial as it can get. “The Futsal Association of India has been in existence since 2007 and we don’t care what they do,” says AIFF secretary Kushal Das. “This tournament is unofficial. Players participating will be sanctioned. They won’t be able to play in official tournaments.”
Considering that the AIFF hasn’t so far bothered to spell the word ‘futsal’ much less organise a tournament, it is difficult to imagine potential players being scared away by these threats.
The whole FIFA-AMF controversy seems to be enough of a mess already. But in India a mess is not a mess unless it’s one of spectacular proportions. Enter the Indian Soccer Futsal Federation (ISSF) — a third organisation to govern a virtually non-existent sport! “We are affiliated to the The Association for International Sport for All (TAFISA),” says secretary BD Varma of his organisation founded in 2010. “We’ve been organising district and state level tournaments for some time. This Figo tournament is illegal. We’re the governing body for futsal.”
Two more bodies and we will have one to govern each member of India’s national team when they finally form one!