‘We Haven’t Seen The Sunrise Yet’: Gallant Sports CEO Talks India’s Olympic Push And Building In NorthEast

The sporting story of India, like much of South Asia, is one of unfulfilled promises and ‘what ifs’. India, the world’s fourth-largest economy and home to one of the biggest space programmes, also has the worst Olympic medal tally per capita. When it comes to sports, India’s natural talent collides with systemic neglect, with the latter usually winning.

Despite the usual story – a lack of training centres, limited incentives, and absent sponsorships – a few organisations and individuals are choosing to build, quite literally, from the ground up.

One of them is Nasir Ali, founder and CEO of Gallant Sports & Infra. Over the years, Gallant has quietly established itself as one of the largest sporting infrastructure companies in South Asia. The Gurugram-based company has already undertaken some big-name projects, especially in the Northeast, but as Ali himself made it clear in an exclusive chat with Outlook India, “there’s a long way to go”.

Football Above Clouds: The Story Of Tawang And Yupia Track

Of all the projects built by Gallant, their claim to fame is their two undertakings in the Northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. There, Gallant built the Tawang Stadium and the Yupia Track.

Tawang, located some thirty-odd kilometres from the Chinese border, is not an easy place to reach. However, that place is now home to the Tawang Stadium, one of the highest football grounds in the country at over 10,000 feet. It was recently chosen as a centre for high-altitude training by the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

Gallant had to make two stadiums in that area, one in Tawang and another in nearby Jang. How difficult is it to create two stadiums in such remote and sensitive locations? “It was a difficult time,” says Ali. “While we were building them, it snowed.

“One night, there was an accident – one of the trucks fell 300 or 400 feet down. We couldn’t save the driver. Incidents like that happen, and they leave you with a very bad feeling about the project.”

Despite the delays caused by such tragedies, the stadiums were ready on time, and Ali credits the “incredibly supportive” locals for that achievement. Both Tawang and Jang Stadiums are certified by FIFA.

Unlike other Northeastern states like Manipur and Mizoram, Arunachal is a late bloomer when it comes to footballing success. However, Chief Minister Pema Khandu and AIFF Treasurer Kipa Ajay have lent their support to Gallant in developing infrastructure in the state.

The challenges abound in building fields in remote areas. “The transportation cost is higher, and sending our teams and raw materials is challenging,” Ali explained. However, the “good support system” in place has allowed Gallant to build something even more eye-catching – the World Athletics-certified Yupia Stadium track, or as it is now known, the 'Gallant Track'.

The Yupia Stadium is one of the ‘star’ stadiums in the Northeast, with tournaments like the Santosh Trophy being played at the ground. As such, any construction there had to be done on “record time”, as Ali put it, and Gallant did just that.

Having a full-sized polyurethane athletics track certified by WA was no mean feat. There were laboratories involved in checking that the standards were upheld. “World Athletics checks everything – how the track performs while running, the rebound rate, the thickness, whether the material is good, and if it’s free from harmful chemicals.

“We failed a few times," Ali admitted. "But eventually, we found the right combination, and it was approved by a laboratory certified by World Athletics”.

Gallant continues to undertake sporting projects across the country, from one of the highest small-sized football pitches in Ladakh to hockey stadiums in Tamil Nadu under the state sports authority. However, the focus is squarely on the Northeast.

“We are focusing on the Northeast because the champions of tomorrow will come from these places,” Ali says, “because they have the ability to win medals.”

Olympics: The Spark, Not Endgame

By now, most sports fans are aware of India’s ambition to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games and 2036 Summer Olympics. Every sports fan has an opinion about this – either the Olympics are a holy grail that will finally launch India to the pinnacle of sports, or it’s a costly endeavour where the country will end up embarrassing itself against the likes of China or the United States of America (USA).

Nasir Ali has a different outlook. It’s not about the Olympic Games themselves that he is most interested in, but the 15-year roadmap of development that comes before it. The Khelo Bharat Niti 2025 has allocated around four thousand crores for the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for the upcoming financial year, and more is expected.

“This is the right time (to improve),” Ali says. He highlights how China started building their sporting infrastructures around 15 years before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and now, “they are the suppliers to the world”.

“So, maybe the Olympics will give that spark, and people will come out and play,” he added.

It’s not going to be an easy road ahead, though. There are plenty of hurdles to navigate in a country that is lagging behind the big players – the USA, China, Australia, Japan, South Korea, or even former Soviet nations like Uzbekistan.

In such countries, there is something or the other for the public to play on, but it’s a distant reality for India. “I think we started very late. Work has only begun in the last few years, and even now it’s slow,” Ali says.

“We need many more projects and faster execution. We also need more support from the government to speed up both the work and the payments.”

One way to do so is to focus on smaller stadiums. India doesn’t need a few world-class stadiums; it needs thousands of humble ones.

“Smaller projects can move quickly. Larger ones take more time due to operational checks, execution oversight, inspections, and the involvement of laboratories and federations,” Ali says. “Sometimes, a large project can take six to eight months to complete. Smaller ones can be finished in one or two months.”

However, it’s easier said than done. Involving all the various government departments, overseeing the paperwork, the payment issues – these are but some of the many challenges that Gallant faces in their line of work.

Then, of course, there’s what happens after the ribbons are cut. Maintenance of sporting structures is as important and costly as making them, and in that aspect, Ali paints a grim picture.

“Right now, in most places with hockey or football stadiums or tracks, there are no professional maintenance teams,” he says. “Maalis (gardeners) or sweepers are tasked with cleaning, which is not the right approach.”

These things, though, “can be fixed”, as the CEO says. And, as someone who likes to play tennis instead of watching it on screen, he has a number of ideas on how to do so.

First, he says, build pitches, not stadiums, as most of the stadiums are empty during smaller events anyway. Just imagine that the Super Cup 2025, the season-ender of Indian football, had an average attendance of just over 2,000 people.

“We’re not interested in making stadiums. We don’t yet have the players people would come to watch, so the stadiums are always empty,” Ali says. “That’s why we say – make a cage, put up a fence, and build the stadium inside that. Keep it under lock and key. Add a changing room and toilets. That’s cheaper and better.”

Cheaper and better is the mantra if we are ever to reach what Nasir Ali envisions – district-level stadiums across the country. He doubles down on “multisports”, which he claims will be the biggest thing going forward, where grounds can host multiple disciplines instead of being restricted to one.

“A country like the Netherlands has 450 fields. India may not even have a hundred in playable condition – maybe even fewer, because we don’t really know.”

It’s not about just making the pitches, however. It’s about making them at the right time. In India, late-stage development means that the medals are lost even before the runners get on the tracks.

“We need hundreds of athletics tracks to train, and they must be provided at the right age,” Ali says, with a tinge of sadness that all Indian sports fans can relate to. “We can’t ask our players to run on the road and then suddenly shift them to rubber polyurethane tracks, which are comfortable to run on. That adaptation needs to happen at the right stage.”

The night is just darkest before the dawn, as they say, and Nasir Ali added that when it comes to sporting infrastructure, “we haven’t even seen the sunrise at 3 am”.

Until that dawn arrives, like Gallant, all we can do is build on, for only when the tracks are built will India’s sprint towards medals begin.