World Football: The Real Problem With Football and India

India is a country which has a rich cultural diversity and most people from India who go abroad are considered to be very smart. But the perennial problem for India has been to produce a competitor to the marquee sport, cricket.

I suppose that every country has its main sport, but in India cricket is a religion. You see fans burning effigies of players, their homes being destroyed if they lose a match and former Indian cricket coach Gregg Chappell was even slapped by a fan when he was in Bhubhaneshwar airport, in the eastern state of Orissa.

I remember watching a debate on a local television channel not so long ago about why Indians aren't able to make the cut in sports other than cricket.

One thing I would like to state at this juncture is that the "national sport" of India is hockey, not cricket, so the debate was focused mostly upon hockey, cricket, and football (due to the emergence of the English Premier League).

Many of the participants in the debate stated the obvious—less funding for sports other than cricket, lack of infrastructure, and the hyping of cricket by most channels in general led to cricket's "over-popularity."

But, one interesting thing which was mentioned was that Indians had a "genetic" problem, in the sense that people from India weren't successful enough in sports other than cricket because we just didn't have the endurance which the Americans or the Europeans have.

That, in my opinion was the biggest load of garbage I had ever heard. In a country of one billion people, how can we not have at least a 100 people who have the capability of playing top-level football?

That brings me to the real problem with Indian football—and that is the society.

The education system in India is perhaps the one of the most rigorous ones in the World. Classes 10 and 12 take a centralized "board exam" which would determine their future in terms of which university they can go on to.

So, 90 percent of children in the age bracket of 12-17 study most of the day. Even I used to study most of the day when I was in class 12 because the pressure was just unbelievable. The pressure that I'm referring to is the pressure to perform which comes from the society.

Most coaches would agree that a young footballer should have the technical ability developed by the age of 12-14. So, when so many potentially gifted footballers are bothered more about their studies, how can we produce decent footballers?

The All India Football Federation have been inept at developing grass-roots level football in India. They have a cabinet minister as their president (much like the Board of Control for Cricket in India), so nobody knows what is going on within their circles. They have started initiatives at the school level but have only limited them to the northern states, which in my opinion, is simply appalling.

All we know is that during the World Cup qualifiers we get mauled by teams like Japan—7-0—and Lebanon (who subsequently lost to Singapore)—6-3.

Things are changing in India though. Wolverhampton Wanderers have linked up with an I-League team and Arsenal have expressed an interest and have also come down to India to do some recruiting. It is reported that three boys have been selected to train at Arsenal for a certain period, and this by itself is a massive achievement for us Indians.

Indians have to become more open-minded about sports like football. The opportunities are limited for the foreseeable future but there has to be a start somewhere.

The only commendable thing our national team has done till now is have Nike as their sponsors. We have to start showing some results on the pitch as well.

I'm sure that with Bob Houghton at the helm, India will continue to make strides but we did recently lose to Bhutan in the SAFF Cup which was a major embarrassment.

The EPL has made a massive impact on the Indian youth and a considerable amount of young Indians follow the league with a lot of passion for one team or the other. But, it must be ensured that the passion to watch Liverpool or Manchester United play is converted into the passion to play the sport at the highest level.

Until India manages to change the manner in which the society views education over everything else under the sun, I'm afraid the future doesn't look too bright for football.