NFL: The seven-year hitch

Seven years ago, Indian soccer embarked on a dream with the National football League. It had almost been comatose since the 80s. There was a flutter among players, officials and fans; the kind of flutter and excitement that a new-born brings into a joint family.
But even before the baby could start walking on its own, everybody was ready with sticks and brooms to have a go at it.
Seven years have gone by, with East Bengal emerging as the new champions in the current edition, but the All-India Football Federation's (AIFF) dream child is yet to show any sign of growth or indeed any visible impact on Indian football.
The Clubs may be hungry to grab another title; they may be hunting for big-bodied foreigners who can gave them an edge over the Indian footballers. But that's it. Hery Britto, the Salgaocar secretary, describes the dream as a big bubble.
The ball may still be rolling but it appears to be doing that without any aim, without any direction. AIFF secretary Alberto Colaco admits that they have failed to reach the target.
"We have faced several problems over all these years," he says. "In this context," he adds rather fatalistically, "I should say it's a big deal that we have been condcuting the event without a single break." He is, however, confident that the winds of change will soon start floating.
"I can assure you that things are going to change. In the right direction... soon," says Colaco.
It was in 1994 that a FIFA technical committee had visited India. Their mantra: India needs a National Football League to develop its soccer standards. The committee was, however, quick to add that it would be better to avoid an overnight transformation, from an amateur structure to a professional one. They were clearly not happy with their experiments in certain other Asian countries.
The AIFF, therefore, took two years to conceptualise and start the NFL. Its president Priya Ranjan Das Munshi set a target of five years to convert it into a fully professional setup. Fair enough. Even the Asian powerhouse, Japan, took a fairly long time before settling for its J-League format.
But here, in our beloved country, the story unfolded differently.
"Nothing much has changed in these past seven years," says Baichung Bhutia, the most recognisable face and saleable product of Indian football. "More disappointingly, it's growing very slowly." But can't he see any positives? "The national league has made football an around-the year event. The competition levels have certainly improved a little but we are still miles away from reaching a fully professional structure. That's the only way for developing the sport today," says Bhutia.
He adds: "We need to reform many things. Both at the micro and the macro levels. And we should do it fast."
The first ever National League started with lot of enthusiasm as it had a generous title sponsor in electronics major Philips.
There was money and there was glamour too as ESPN-STAR Sports evinced interest. But the good times didn't last long. Phillips, frustrated with the apex body of Indian football, pulled out the very next year; the AIFF also fell out with ESPN/STAR Sports.
"I feel the AIFF started the NFL in a hurry," says Henry Britto, the general secretary of Salgaocar which had won the title in the third edition. "The ground was not ready and they have done very little in the last seven years to improve it. The AIFF should have studied the foreign leagues. They should have done some introspection on our own structure before going ahead with it," he says.
"There are some clubs (like Tollygunge Agragami of Kolkata) who are playing in the premier division even without having their own ground," he points out.
"And we are talking about professionalism. Neither the clubs were ready nor the apex body for this mega experiment. Now our club management is gasping just to run the club and even looking for excuses just to drop the curtain," explains Brito.
The future of the NFL suddenly looked doomed just a week before the kick-off of its fifth edition. The bosses of the nine premier clubs met at Mumbai and formed the IPFA and rose in revolt against the federation. The games started, albeit beyond schedule, only after the AIFF assured that henceforth there would be no problem in getting participation money.
The AIFF then signed a mind-boggling deal of Rs 60 million with Doordarshan for the fifth edition. It's still not clear why the government-run channel paid such a huge amount when it neither had the time nor interest to show all the matches live. Not more than 20 to 25, out of 132 matches, were shown live on its DD sports channel.
"Live telecast is our biggest obstacle," says the AIFF secretary. "In fact," he adds, rather naively, "the NFL hasn't received the publicity that it deserves.
The big clubs like East Bengal and Mohun Bagan have always expressed their concern over this. Our sponsor (UB group) is cutting the budget every year, citing that they are not getting enough mileage. "Our AIFF officials have failed to learn the lessons from their counterparts in cricket," says Anjan Mitra, the Mohun Bagan secretary.
Probably. So how come 70-80 thousand people still come to the stadium in Kolkata for most big or crucial matches? How come Bangalore recorded 50-60 thousand spectators in virtually every HAL-ITI match last season? Sadly, in the next edition of the league there won't be any clubs from either Bangalore or Kerala, two other strong football centres.
This is something really unfortunate says an executive from Strata sports marketing (AIFF's marketing agent). "Just when we were planing to give Indian domestic soccer the look and feel of a big industry this happens," he says. Most of AIFF's hopes are, of course, revolving around Strata these days. After all, this reputed international firm had done a good job in Vietnam earlier.
"India's domestic football has the capability of generating big business. What we need to do is to re-organise ourselves," he adds.
"We are working towards it, along with the AIFF. Our first priority is to rope in a sponsor for at least three years so that both parties can fulfill their goals. As the marketing agent of the AIFF our next job would be to give the NFL and other soccer events as much publicity as possible and we are ready with our blueprint," says the Strata executive.
During the Indian football conference held recently in the Capital, Peter Velappan, the general secretary of AFC, described India as an untapped mine. "It needs only efficient and professional people to explore it," he says.
Colaco claims that they have already started some reformation and that many plans are already in the pipeline.
"We will not rush into anything because the socio-political structure of India is quite different from Europe and most of the Asian countries. But we will grow," he says, a little more confidently. With FIFA and AFC taking lot of interest in Indian and have even formalised a doctrine called Vision India maybe the dream will still come true. Some day.
Amen.