Indian football: A tunnel without vision

BY now, or at least in the last few years, the All-India Football Federation secretary should have come to dread the beginning of a season. For it is the time to open a little more the unclosed Pandora’s box. The attention focussed on the recent World Cup in Korea and Japan gave the incumbent, Albert Colaco, some respite.
The respite is over. If anything, problems have piled up in the meantime. The big two clubs from Kolkata, National League champion Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, are gearing up for a trial of strength with the national federation. The former, an invitee for the Asian Football Confederation’s proposed champions league, will put forward its case of depleted strength later this month at Kuala Lumpur. East Bengal’s plea is on similar lines, for participation in the Kolkata league.
The two clubs hold that the call-up of their players to the camp to prepare the national team for the September-October Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, will hamper their participation and performances in other events. This has been the burden of the wail of big clubs of Kolkata for 40 years and more.
Colaco could be at his wit’s end to make concessions to the clubs without harming the national team. Participation in the Asian champions league may not demand an immediate solution, as the AFC will not institute the competition before the groundwork and rules are finalised. But the Kolkata league issue cannot be brushed aside, despite the recent declining interest.
However, the Kolkata league is not the AIFF’s baby. It is the Indian Football Association’s. The West Bengal state body, unfortunately, cannot be said to have shown foresight and statesmanship in the running of its premier league and the IFA Shield over the last decade. The two competitions have lost much of their prestige and the state body its weight in matters of Indian football.
The IFA has not made things better for its clubs or itself by scheduling a two-match visit to South Africa towards the end of this month. It has given out that the players would be drawn from its leading clubs.
This would mean two things. One, players of its team either would not be available to the national camp or that they would report later. Two, with its own team away in South Africa, it cannot start its league before the beginning of August.
Further, press reports suggest that communications between the AIFF and the IFA are not free and transparent; the state body’s joint secretary last week declined to spell out details of personnel for the visit.
This situation smacks of the each-for-himself attitude, with nary a thought for the national interest.
Forty years ago in a hostile stadium, a gallant India team reversed the result of a group match on South Korea in the final of the Asian Games! Our victim has risen steadily from the ashes of Jakarta to play in the final rounds of the World Cup in 1986, 1994 and 1998 before beating European powers Poland, Portugal, Italy and Spain and winning acclaim as the fourth best team in the recent World Cup.
And the Indian team? It has still to qualify for the final rounds! The reason? From South Korea’s President to the Korean Football Association president to the coach and the players to the millions of fans they had a focussed tunnel vision. In India we are in a tunnel without vision.