The Undoing of Indian Football Did Not Happen Overnight
This is a new low even for a sport’s governing body known more for its blots and failures than achievements.
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With previous admonishes from FIFA falling on deaf ears time and time again, Indian football woke up to the most bizarre nightmare in its acrimonious existence in the new millennium the day after the nation proudly celebrated its 76th Independence Day – a square, non-compromising, and outright ban on the All India Football Federation (AIFF).
This is a new low even for a sport’s governing body known more for its blots and failures than meaningful achievements. The mudslinging and finger-pointing has already begun.
With everything up in smoke in the wake of the ban, and the future of the beautiful game in the country looking as uncertain as ever, it is as good as a time as any to state that Indian football did not arrive here overnight.
A decade of horrifying decisions, malpractices, political power grabs, and ulterior motives had set the tone for the undoing even before most realised it.
The year was 2011, when a certain gentleman named Juan Manuel Lillo quietly sat and watched the Indian team practice under Armando Colaco at the Ambedkar Stadium in New Delhi.
The youngest person to ever manage a team in La Liga, Lillo, had earlier sat and discussed plans with the AIFF big brass including Praful Patel, Kushal Das, and officials from IMG Reliance, the commercial partners of the federation.
Back then, the AIFF, like any football association that wasn’t living under a cave, wanted the national team to play ‘the Barcelona way.’
However, despite Lillo’s obvious brilliance, his candidature was felt ‘not good enough’ by the federation for the post of Technical Director, and the Spaniard’s inability to converse in English was also deemed to be a communication roadblock.
For the uninitiated, he was the assistant coach to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City for a couple of years, having replaced Mikel Arteta in 2020, and the present coach of Al Sadd, after Xavi took over the reins of Barcelona.
Lillo is, however, is more than just his designations, as he is arguably the most influential name in modern football coaching you’ve ever heard of. Guardiola openly credits Lillo for being one of the biggest sources of inspiration for his methods and style along with Marcelo Bielsa.
In a long laundry list of blatant decisions taken by the AIFF that hardly make sense, this might not even take the cake. But it’s the promise of what-could-have-been that will continue to haunt ardent sports followers in the country.
A couple of years later, a new celebratory football league was introduced to the country with much pomp and show.
Trying to combine the glamour of Bollywood with superstar signings like Luis Garcia, Alessandro del Piero, Diego Forlan, Roberto Carlos, and Nicolas Anelka, among others, in order to boost validation and popularity, the league soon discovered that such lavish affairs were hardly sustainable in the long run and settled for a quieter existence.
The I-League, which had been India’s foremost football division for a long while and had a system of relegation and promotion in place, was dislodged off the perch.
For a good number of years, two parallel ‘top-division’ leagues existed in the country simultaneously until a solution was found in 2019 with the consultation of the Asian Football Confederation with the ISL being appointed as the top-tier league in India and was granted the AFC Champions League slot.
This relegated the I-League to the status of a domestic cup tournament that possessed the AFC Cup slot.
While the AFC had also mandated the competition to introduce a promotion-relegation system on the basis of merit and via which, clubs from the existing I-League could find a pathway to the top-tier, they are yet to be met and the changes are unlikely to take place until the 2024-25 season.
As such, only the two Kolkata giants – Mohun Bagan and East Bengal – have been able to make the leap to the top-tier but the circumstances surrounding them playing in the ISL have also been a matter of controversy and contention and remain a topic for another day.
On this day, five years ago, the organisers of the 2017 U17 World Cup in India were touring with the trophy.
The successful hosting of the event proved to be a landmark achievement for the country as several thousands in the stands got to witness the likes of Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho, Emil Smith Rowe, Aurelien Tchouameni, and Ferran Torres take the first steps on their road to achieving super-stardom.
Jeakson Singh also ended up netting the first goal for India in the FIFA World Cup, and there was plenty of hope and ambition around the corner.
What will happen next, where will the tournament be hosted, what about the preparation and participation of the U17 Women’s Team? The answers to those questions are up to anyone’s best guess at this point.
However, what is abundantly clear at this point is the fact that as usual, the footballers and fans will pay the price.
Amidst the celebrations of Independence Day on 15 August, the Gokulam Kerala FC social media account posted a picture of the women’s team that travelled to Uzbekistan for the AFC Club Championship with the caption ‘Let your dreams take flight.'
Almost seven hours later, their wings got clipped following the rude awakening of the FIFA ban, ruling them ineligible for the competition.
A similar fate also beckons the players of ATK Mohun Bagan who have been ruled out of the AFC Cup Inter Zonal Playoffs. Even Indian Super League clubs will be affected by the ban as they can no longer sign or register foreign players before the window closes on 31 August.
What about the Indian national team? For a side that has been regarded as an afterthought for so long, they too, will suffer the ugly hand dealt to them and cannot participate in international friendlies, let alone major continental competitions.
The two matches scheduled against Vietnam and Singapore in September as a build-up to the upcoming Asia Cup cycle stand cancelled as of now.
While there’s a chance that FIFA may lift the ban as long as the CoA appointed by the Supreme Court to run the day-to-day affairs of the AIFF is disbanded, the irony is not lost on anyone.
FIFA’s ban didn’t arrive after the former federation president, Praful Patel, held on to his post for 13 years and refused elections under various pretences, the situation came to their notice only when the apex court appointed the CoA.
The same panel that was supposed to clean the house and set things in order to enable a smooth transition with the hosting of elections ended up making matters worse and was found guilty of ‘third party interference’ after obtaining evidence that the former president had held meetings with 35 member associations and impeding with the proceedings of the Supreme Court.
Footballers and fans didn’t create this mess, but they are the ones who will lose the most amidst all the ego clashes and blame games.
It is a day of humiliation for a country possessing millions of football worshippers, many of who are yet to discover their true belonging to the sport close to their roots.
Those who do and are actively and emotionally invested with football in India, are met only with disappointment and dejection.
While the saying suggests that once you’ve hit rock bottom, the only direction is up, as long as clout-chasing politicians with little interest for the beautiful game run proceedings, the only way forward is backwards.
Anjishnu Roy is a freelance sports writer and journalist. When he's not busy trying to capture the highs and lows of professional sports through words, he's probably raving about a Denis Villeneuve or Asghar Farhadi film.
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