Indians love watching football as much they like watching cricket, but unfortunately, this has not translated into any tangible benefits for Indian football. While Indian football matches are indeed played all over the country on weekends, the crowd is often missing as most of the football supporters in the country would be busy cheering for their heroes playing for Manchester United or Chelsea in the English Premier League. Indian football has always lacked the “cool” factor, that is so important to the youth, and also, there is a serious lack of talent and money in the sport in India.
A new football league in India, the Indian Super League (ISL) hopes to change that. ISL has taken three years to come to fruition, but is all set to start on October 12. The goal of the ISIS is to take some of the attention away from cricket.
How long will the Indian Super League last?
The ISL will last for 10 weeks, feature eight clubs, and will feature several international football stars, who may be said to be way past their prime, yet were huge names in their day. We are talking about David James, Robert Pires, Allesandro del Piero, Freddie Ljungberg, Nicolas Anelka, and David Trezeguet.
Also involved is the former Newcastle United, Sunderland, Blackpool, Cardiff, and Ipswich player Michael Chopra, who is well known to be the only Indian origin player to play in the English Premier League. Chopra shall be joining the Kerala Blasters, which is owned by the greatest cricketer of the modern era, Sachin Tendulkar.
Kushal Das of the All India Football Federation was very hopeful of the ISL’s success: “My main idea behind going to play in India was to have a new challenge, and I also wanted to show my support for the sport in the country,”
“The main thing is to boost football in India. There are 1.2 billion people in the country and not too many of them play football – cricket is still the biggest.
“I want to be part of creating a football legacy in the country. I hope this plan will go a long way towards the development of professional football in India,” says Kushal Das, AIFF general secretary.
“It has not been easy – we have suffered from a lack of money, lack of visibility, lack of infrastructure. Also, we have not been able to develop iconic players. The challenges have been big. But with this new [ISL] league coming up, people in India are getting interested, everyone has heard about it.”
The head of AIFF, Mr. Das added: “I have spoken to the club owners, and issues of profit and loss are not on their horizons.
“They know they cannot make money in the next five years, but they also realize that the potential is so huge that they have got to forget the balance sheet for the moment, and concentrate on the development of the sport for now.”
“I do believe that football in India is a giant that has finally woken up. It is ready to get out of bed and conquer the world.”
Another official involved with the Indian Super League was equally evocative about the benefits of the new league for Indian football, about how it would add to the popularity of the Indian game: “The ISL was created to bring in extra attention and glamour to Indian football. That will have a tumble down effect into other parts of Indian football.”
What’s interesting about the new Indian Super League that is set to take the attention from cricket, India’s favourite sport, even for a little while is that, two of the eight teams in the ISL are owned by the most popular Indian cricketers of their generation. Sachin Tendulkar, who needs no introduction, owns the Kerala Bashers, as mentioned earlier, and Atletico Kolkata is owned by Kolkata’s favourite son, Sourav Ganguly. Ganguly’s team has been built with great contributions from the Spanish La Liga Champions, Atletico Madrid. The two cricketers are known to have been rivals despite being in the same team. Now, the ISL allows both to take their rivalry to a whole new level, and in a sport different from cricket.
