Column | Indian Football Has Found A New Home

It used to be an annual assignment those days which reporters from the City of Joy would look forward to, more in anticipation of an all-expenses paid trip to the hills and the thin crust momos rather than the quality of football. That afternoon, something special was in store which would change the course of Indian football for the next two decades.

A 16-year-old, Bhaichung Bhutia, wreaked havoc on the decorated Mohun Bagan defence outwitting the legendary Monoranjan Bhattacharya time and again with lightning speed, feints and close control on a coarse ground levelled with sand. The maroon and green outfit managed to win the day, but a star was born as Bhutia made his move to East Bengal the very next season and thus started the journey of the ‘Sikkimese Sniper’, as he was famously called.

Few would argue that Bhutia, the talismanic former India captain before the arrival of Sunil Chhetri, was the region’s biggest export to the mainstream Indian football in modern times. History, of course, reminds you of the folklore of T. Ao (Talimeren Ao) of Nagaland who went on to become the first captain of the Indian national team after Independence in the 1948 Olympics. Blessed with a DNA which produces natural athletes from that part of the country, Ao has been a mythical figure who studied medicine at R. G. Kar Medical College and played for Mohun Bagan for nine years.

Fast forward to 2026 and the winds of change in Indian football are palpable. The collective of Northeast—comprising the Seven Sisters: Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Tripura and ‘brother’ Sikkim—is rightfully known as the talent factory of the country, as the figures speak for themselves. It’s no secret that while Manipur is the primary powerhouse, Meghalaya and Mizoram are the other two frontliners as the numbers speak for themselves across men and women’s national teams of all age groups, the elite Indian Super League (ISL) and the Indian Women’s League (IWL). Any number of youngsters from these states populate a number of state leagues in southern India as well as the junior academies of the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

“The phenomenon has happened organically and the numbers speak for themselves,” remarks Tetea Hmar, president of the Mizoram Football Association and the state’s minister of sports and youth affairs. The 48-year-old may not have been a professional footballer, but he is credited with a vision which saw him launch a Mizo Premier League, a pioneering effort in the hills back in 2012 with eight teams—an effort which has produced a number of star boys in the Indian team like Lallianzuala Chhangte and Lalengmawia Ralte (nicknamed Apuia).

“One thing I realised early on is that in order for the state to prosper, we needed a league of our own as it would stop the exodus of young talents,” says Hmar. We took on Zonet, a local TV channel, as commercial partners and started with an eight-team league which can now sustain itself.” Taking a leaf from them, Meghalaya started its own version in Shillong; Sikkim and Nagaland followed, but have been grappling with sponsorship issues.

According to conservative estimates, around 20-40 per cent of players in men’s national teams across age groups today are from the Northeast—while it goes up to between 30 per cent and 35 per cent in the case of women. The Blue Tigresses squad for the Asian Football Confederation in Australia in March this year, incidentally, had 10 players from Manipur alone with Sweety Devi Ngangbam captaining the side.

The region’s outsized contribution also reflects in the fact that over 30 per cent of domestic players in the ISL hail from there—with Manipur and Mizoram once having a lion’s share of the pie. While the breakdown for Manipur is not available, statistics available with the Mizoram federation says that there were 43 players from the state in last ISL and 62 of them in last I-League, the first-ever form of national league. There are two Mizoram teams in I-League at the moment: Aizawl FC and Chanmari FC while Shillong Lajong FC of Meghalaya was one of the earliest representatives of the region in the league.

Manipur, on the other hand, boasts of around 50-plus players from the football crazy state in the ISL with several prominent names like Jeakson Singh Thounaojam, Bipin Singh Thounaojam (both reigning champions East Bengal), Mohammad Yasir (FC Goa), Suresh Singh Wangjam, Chinglensana Singh Konsham (both Bengaluru FC) or Nongdamba Singh Naorem (SC Delhi). A journey back in time throws up names like former India captain Renedy Singh, Gouramangi Singh, Surkumar Singh Irungbam, Kiran Khongsai—the list is endless.

The shift in the assembly line of talent from states like Bengal, Goa, Kerala or Punjab—which started since the onset of the new millennium—is too conspicuous now. Any student of the history of Indian football will acknowledge the influence of regional icons like Surajit Sengupta, Subhash Bhowmick and Subrata Bhattacharya in building up its reputation as the football city as the same logic worked as the magnetic factor for other premier football states.

However, the eyes of the movers and shakers of Indian football began tracking towards the Northeast from late the 1990s itself. There is a familiar story of how a talent-hunt team of the State Bank of India (SBI), comprising Sengupta and the legendary goalkeeper Bhaskar Ganguly, first set their eyes on a young Bhutia during a trip to Sikkim. The emergence of the Tata Football Academy (TFA) in Jamshedpur since the late 1980s also had a defining role in unearthing serious talent from Manipur—with Renedy and Gouramangi going on to establish themselves at the turn of the millennium.

While the TFA, the first full-fledged football academy of the country, is hailed for playing its part in hoisting Manipur in the football map, Gouramangi believes that Manipur had often produced quality talents in 1980s and 1990s, but they didn’t have enough exposure. “Manipur as well as the rest of the Northeast had been quite isolated from the rest of the country even till the early 1990s. There were hardly any direct flights to Kolkata and the idea of parents sending their children to seek room for development was unheard of. This led to someone like a Balin Singh, an exceptional talent, never moving out of his comfort zone,” says the former international defender.

Gouramangi, the owner of 72 international caps and the current head coach of ISL club FC Goa, feels that the growth of the region as a football hub happened organically over the past three decades, rather than due to isolated efforts of any academy or individuals. “When the Northeast opened up for tourism and business investments, people started realising the potential of the region as a football hub. The sport had been always a way of life in Manipur—thanks to the vast empty spaces and the fact that the beautiful game is easy to play,” remarks the 40-year-old.

A key factor behind the popularity of the sport in Manipur is that there has virtually been no parental restriction about girls taking up the sport. The superior physique, natural athleticism and reserves of stamina made their state team an unbeatable unit in the context of national championships as Manipur won the Rajmata Jijabai Trophythe women’s equivalent of Santosh Trophya record 24 times out of 30 editions. The likes of Ngangom Bala Devi and Bembem Devi Oinam who were famously called Durga in their football loving fraternity, Ashalata Devi, Sweety, Panthoi Chanu Elangbam and Grace Dangmei have been indispensable members of the Indian side over the years. However, Bala Devia talismanic figure who was the first Indian women footballer to reach the landmark of 50 international goalsis piqued at the disparity between the pay cheques between them and their men counterparts.

“The job is much tougher for women footballers to make a career in India. In Manipur, the ones who do well can hope to land a job with the state police—a government job—but not much has really changed even with the introduction of the IWL three years ago,” says Bala Devi, who had won a professional contract with Rangers FC in 2020. What is it that sets the Manipuri girls a class apart? The former India captain feels their dedication makes for a lot of difference, while the “presence of other sporting idols like Mary Kom and Mirabai Chanu always act as an inspiration for the girls.”

The AIFF, located nearly 2,500 km away in Dwarka in the capital, is quick to give a thumbs up to the football revolution in that part of the country. They have, in recent times, allotted a few high-profile events in the Northeast like a tri-nation tournament in Manipur in early 2023 before ethnic violence set their football back by at least a year, while the 2024 Santosh Trophy was held in Yupia near Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.

M. Satyanarayan, the acting secretary general of the AIFF, is candid in admitting that he is in awe at the deluge of talent from Northeastern states since he became a part of the umbrella body. Sharing an anecdote of his tenure as the secretary of the Karnataka Football Association, before he joined the national body, the official recalled: “We were hosting a final of the Karnataka Youth Premier League when I noticed that 21 out of the 22 boys from rival teams were from the Northeast. This happens because the children leave home at a very early age and try and make a living out of playing football—something which shows their tremendous hunger.”

Citing another example of their all-consuming interest, Satyanarayan says that in the two grassroots academies the federation has launched in collaboration with FIFA in Bhubaneswar and Hyderabad, the boom of boys from the hills is unmistakeable. “Parents are willing to send young children, sometimes between nine and 12 years of age and from remote areas, at our academies by rustling up the initial investment of Rs 2-4 lakh. Our academies are residential and we also arrange for their schooling. However, I can tell you from experience that not many parents from the metropolis would be courageous enough to do it,” he adds. That must give us hope for Indian football.

(Views expressed are personal)

Gautam Bhattacharyya is a former sports editor of Gulf News, Dubai

(This story appeared in Outlook magazine’s August 17 issue, 'Parliament on Street', which takes an incisive look at the student protests against recurring examination paper leaks, the zing of Gen-Z politics and the Jantar Mantar protest at Delhi which triggered a strong response all across India, sending out a clear reminder that while governments are formed in Parliament, democracies remain alive on the streets)