Sports

Tour De Farce?

The Indian team's second trip to Britain kicks up a major row

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Tour De Farce?
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Honestly speaking, you don't need the country's sports cognoscenti to comment on Indian soccer. Any youngster in the bylanes of Calcutta, Kochi or Panaji would suffice. And to all and sundry, Indian soccer is a sick joke. In South Asia itself, India is ranked lower than Nepal and Bangladesh. As for global rankings, India is a lowly 121. Its international tournaments, Nehru Cup and Rajiv Gandhi Cup, have dried up because of lack of sponsors and the national team doesn't take part in any global championships. The national league kicked off with some funds from Philips and the very next year there was a problem with sponsors and a last-minute reprieve came in the shape of Coca Cola. Therefore, it's more than ironical that the Indian squad is now on a tour of England. The mission: to take on Fulham and West Bromwich, two second-division English Clubs, and the Bangladeshi national selection!

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No wonder technical director P.K. Banerjee calls it a historic tour, especially since the last was way back in 1948 when Taliraman Ao led India on its first Olympic campaign and lost all three ties. Banerjee, who trained the team at Patiala for over a month, feels his boys will get good exposure: "We must have more such trips because it will expose the team to an altogether different kind of football. It's sad that we could not get the best team since the big clubs did not release their players."

But what's the buzz? Insiders claim the trip, which could manage only Hero Honda and Western Union in England as sponsors, is more of an image-building exercise for Congress politician Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, also chief of All-India Football Federation (aiff). Worcester-based talent-spotter Raj Purohit - who got Baichung Bhutia to play for Bury - has inadvertently helped Das Munshi in his game by organising the tour. aiff polls are near and Das Munshi needs to drum up all the support he can to secure another term.

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"This is no tour....It's worse than a farce. Honestly, it will achieve nothing for Indian football. If exposure is the criterion, then pick the right boys. And the right time," remarks Rupak Saha, soccer expert and sports editor of Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika. Saha should know. Ever since the tour was announced, the big clubs from Goa, Kerala and Bengal said they wouldn't release their players. One of them - East Bengal - even sued the federation.

The clubs also told aiff that the tour was primarily to help brokers in London who were trying to find Asians for second, third and fourth division clubs in England, ostensibly because supplies from Africa, West Asia and the Far East were drying up.

To Fulham and West Bromwich, the two clubs which will take on the touring party, the incentive, however, is ticket sales. With crowds approaching 20,000 for the three matches, there will be considerable ticket money. Says John Wile, chief executive of West Bromwich: "It's an important step in forging links with the community close at hand. It will offer an opportunity to Asians to visit our stadium." For Fulham under a new manager Jean Tigana, it's the first go under a continental style of management.

But the obscurity dogging Indian soccer has meant that the team would only get to play second-string sides. Raj Purohit, who persuaded the two clubs to lock horns with Banerjee's boys, was confronted with this inevitable poser: do Indians play football? He says each request gave the Brits the opportunity to repeat the old joke: "Why don't Indians play football? Whenever they get a corner, they put up a shop."

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Curiously, this logic of business is instrumental in drawing up the team's schedule. The last match against Bangladesh is on its way to becoming a subcontinental soccer series in England. The Pakistani media in Britain has raised objections against the exclusion of Pakistan from the tour. Raj Purohit says Pakistan will feature in the next tour. If the man who got the "diamond of India" to England is to be believed, London could be the same to Indian soccer what Asif Iqbal's Sharjah now is to Ganguly's men.

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