Simply Kicking Around

India's premier football tourney is called the National Football League. Nothing wrong about that, except the fact that there's little Indian about it. How else can you explain the fact that foreign players dominated the championship for the third consecutive year? This time around, the foreign imports scored more than 70 per cent of the goals in the 12-team, 132-match tournament which wound up at Thiruvananthapuram last week.

It's a sad commentary on Indian football. Consider this. The last Indian footballer to top the goal scorer's list was Raman Vijayan way back in 1997-98. This year, there was only one Indian—R.C. Prakash of Mohun Bagan—who scored 11 goals and offered some sop to national pride. Otherwise, the top six scorers in the fifth edition of the tourney came from Brazil, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, and Liberia (see box).

Clearly, local talent continues to be on the wane. Senior football coaches too seem to have given up. Remarks Monoranjan Bhattacharya, coach of the title-winning East Bengal team: "Indians have serious consistency problems and in a tournament like this, it's important to score as many goals." Agrees Subrata Bhattacharjee, coach of Mohun Bagan, which missed the title by a whisker: "Minus the foreigners, the league would have been a complete non-starter."

But foreign players alone cannot save the sagging fortunes of Indian football. That East Bengal won the title with a 2-0 win over State Bank Of Travancore (sbt) is of little importance, because the tournament eventually turned out to be a bit of a farce. For one, no mainline sponsor was interested in supporting the gig. Then DD Sports, after promising live coverage, blanked out all the matches last month because of the Australian cricket team's Indian tour and the Commonwealth TT tourney in Delhi. Even the winner's trophy and the Rs 40-lakh cheque could not be given. Instead, East Bengal was told that last year's winner Mohun Bagan is yet to be paid the full amount.

The sheer mismanagement also took one's breath away. Hours before a critical match between East Bengal and sbt, officials of the two teams were asked to help the ground staff to spread sawdust on wet patches (because of a torrential downpour), clear the turf of chairs and help in dismantling a makeshift platform set up for a celebrity show at the ground the previous night.

While clubs cough up fancy sums to woo foreign players, the All India Football Federation (aiff) is cash-strapped. The federation has been repeatedly told by various domestic experts and the Kuala Lumpur-based Asian Football Confederation (afc) that it was time the host clubs were given charge of hosting matches—especially during nights—for such tournaments, a trend common worldwide. "It always helps. The club would ensure good ground conditions and ticket sales, something which will be beneficial to both the clubs and the players—the players will get good conditions, the clubs will pick up more gate money and the federation a larger share. But who will do it?" rues veteran soccer expert Rupak Saha.

Consider the highest ticket 'sales' and low takings during this year's East Bengal-FC Kochin match in Calcutta—the match grossed a pitiable Rs 34,000 despite the fact that tickets for the Salt Lake Stadium were priced at Rs 10 each and more than 80,000 watched the game. The low takings were attributed to a free ticket distribution spree before the match.

The aiff pleads guilty, but says it does not have a choice. Simply because the clubs need to come forward for such a show. Not many are interested because of their own difficulties in raising funds. For example, the Bangalore-based United Breweries—which funds Calcutta's famous troika of East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting—has already said it will not hike this year's annual budgets for the clubs.

Admits federation general secretary, Alberto Colcao: "It's sad that Indian soccer does not have the star value. We are cash-strapped because of this. Once that happens, maybe things will improve." And no one is even guessing when that will happen.