Indian Football in the UAE

The United Arab Emirates, the emerging trade hub of the world has a population of about 4.3 Million as per reports released by the Ministry of Economy, UAE in the month of July 2006. Out of this 4.3 Million people 80% is made up of expatriates, which works out to 3.44 Million expatriates. 50% of this UAE expatriate population is made up of Indians which gives the figure of 1.22 Millions Indians in UAE.
I should say not a bad figure!!! The first question which came to mind as an Indian football fan as soon as I saw this statistic was how could this number help Indian Football? Is there a professional body in place to run the affairs for the expatriate Indian population? What all Indian specific football activities were taking place in UAE? Was anything being done for the development of Indian youth football? With these questions in my mind I set out on a fact finding mission.
At the very onset let me comment that the findings are not too encouraging but still there is room for optimism.

The first and foremost problem which comes to the fore is the lack of a professional body which could run the game in UAE and handle events specific to Indian football. At present there are only sporadic football tournaments happening across UAE for the Indian expatriates. There is only one tournament that has been happening on a regular basis - The Goan inter-village football tournament conducted by the Goan Cultural Society (GSC) which has been going on for the past 18 years (Need to be verified) as per official records. Goan Cultural Society was formed in 1987 and soccer being an integral part of the Goan culture a tournament along the lines of local tournaments held in Goa was started. But this tournament ran into trouble when a break away group named as United Goans was formed and this group has been holding their tournament since 2004. This resulted in the GCS not being able to hold their tournaments in 2004 and 2005. Things came to head stand this year when GCS decided to hold a parallel tournament to the one held by United Goans. Also another major problem of both these tournaments is the fact that they are confined mainly to the Goan expatriates. The above episode clearly shows the lack of professional expertise and attitude and something which has been bane of Indian football and not only expatriate football.

But amidst this chaos Raul Fernandes, CEO&MD of Gulf International Promotions (GIP), who has been actively involved in the running of the various sports event for the past 10 years has started a 7 A-Side Indian expat football league in Dubai which was held successfully from April to June 2006. Raul has plans of starting an 11 A-Side Indian expat league in the near future.
Also there are lot of one day tournaments being held in UAE for the Indian expatriate community on a regular basis across the UAE.

But at the end of the day the question arises do these tournaments help Indian football? The answer at this point of time is no. These tournaments basically involve amateurs and none of the teams have a professional player or are run professionally. But these tournaments do throw up quite a number of promising youngsters. The problem is none of them move to the next level. Also the amount of sponsorship which these tournaments have been able to garner shows that the funds could be generated for the betterment of Indian football with a professional body in place.

Also considering the fact that there a number of good youth development programs such as the Manchester United Soccer School and AC Milan programs being run out here in UAE there is always the chance the odd player selected from here to play at a higher level could be an Indian expatriate. But the major problem of these youth development programs is the prohibitive costing. This is were a professional setup/body could help by running Indian expatriate football activities in UAE and channelling the funds generated from the various activities to provide a chance to a few deserving Indian expatriate youngsters to make use of the excellent football facilities and youth development programs offered by the UAE.