Football India: the past, present and future …
A conference at University College Northampton
Preliminary Report 20.6.2000
9.30-11.00
Mr Keith Cooper, Communications Director of FIFA, opened the University College Northampton (UCN) Football India
Conference on 19 July 2000. Mr Cooper welcomed the staging of the event and the attention that it focused on football in
South Asia. He stated that he felt that the sport in South Asia was a sleeping giant and that as other examples such as
China had shown, these sleeping giants could be made to awaken. He pointed to FIFA's support for the development of
football in India through its financial support of the AIFF and through its coaching programmes in the sub-continent and
hoped that all could work together to aid the development of the game there.
The Past
Dr Jim Mills, Lecturer in History, University College Northampton
The first session chaired by Dr Paul Dimeo of UCN celebrated the rich footballing heritage in India and the long history
of the game there.
Professor Tony Mangan, Director of the International Research Centre for Sport, Socialisation, Society at the University
of Strathclyde in Scotland, gave an entertaining paper which used the example of the Tyndale-Biscoe school in Kashmir as a
case study of the way in which the British introduced football to India. Using a multi-media display which included
photographs of the first school teams there from the first decades of the twentieth centuries, he showed how British school
masters used often eccentric methods to introduce Indians to the sport but that football quickly caught on in Kashmir and
that even to this day the school re-enacts the first ever game held there.
Dr Jim Mills explored the origins of football in one of India's football powerhouses. The sport in Goa flourished from
the time that it was introduced through the Catholic schools despite the fact that the Bishop of the East Indies tried to
ban priests from being involved in the game as he felt that football in cassocks was below the dignity of the church. It
became a way for Goan communities in Mumbai and around the world to maintain their Goan identity, it was developed by the
Portuguese colonisers in the 1950s as they tried to make their rule more popular, and the game got caught up in the politics
of the 1960s and 1970s as Goans used football to assert and celebrate their unique identity within the Indian Union. Dr
Mills concluded that while the game might have been imposed by the British elsewhere in India, in Goa football was embraced
by Indians from the very beginning.
11.30-13.00
The second session. Chaired by the Head of Sport Studies at UCN, Dr John Hammond, continued on the theme of the history
and heritage of Indian football.
Mr Novy Kapadia, journalist and commentator for ESPN and Star TV, gave an outline of the highs and lows of Indian
football. He pointed out that after England and Scotland India had the third oldest Cup competition in the Durand Cup. He
told the story of the 1911 triumph of Mohun Bagan over the East Yorkshire regiment, detailed the great Mohammedan Sporting
of the 1930s and the Hyderabad Police team that dominated the 1950s, and noted that India had come fourth in the 1956
Olympics in a period when the Eastern Bloc countries used to field full international teams in the competition. He also
lamented the missed opportunities of the Indian game such as the declined invitation to the World Cup of 1950 and the
inactivity of the AIFF in the development of the women's game.
Mr Chima Okerie, who played for the Calcutta big three Mohammedan Sporting, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan as well as for
Sunderland and Torquay United, gave a player's view of Indian football. He recalled being spotted as a Nigerian student
while studying at university in India and went on to give an account of both the dark side and the light side of Indian
football. He remembered such great highlights as the thrill of the Calcutta derbies and the their 135 000 crowds and the
honour of winning the national league as top goal scorer, but also revealed the sharp practices of clubs come contract time
when players could be kidnapped to stop them from signing for other clubs and the frustration of trying to claim prize money
from the Byzantine authorities.
14.00-15.30
After a morning of celebrating and assessing the history of Indian football the afternoon focused on issues of
development in the sport.
The session, chaired by Dr Jim Mills of the Department of History at UCN, began with a paper by Mr Bill Adams of the
Delhi Super Soccer Academy. He pointed to the shortcomings of the sports provision of the Indian educational sector and
showed how the schools football season was only six weeks long and how so few schools had access to correctly trained
football coaches. He did however point to his hope for the future, as the Indian educational authorities have finally
begun to rewrite their football curriculum.
Mr Arunava Chaudhuri of the Indian Football Supporters' Club assessed the power of the internet for the development of
football in India. Using a demonstration from the www.indianfootball.com website, he suggested that the world wide web
could be a powerful tool for bringing together South Asians with football experience and expertise from around the world
and also that it could be used for raising the profile of Indian football and for giving the global community up to date
access to the Indian game.
Mr Piara Powar, national co-ordinator of the 'Kick It Out' anti-racism in football in the UK campaign, ended the session
by looking at the future for South Asian footballers in the UK football industry. While concerned about ongoing problems of
stereotyping of Indians and about anti-Asian racism in British sport, he was able to highlight a range of initiatives being
taken in the football industry and told the conference of a new generation of Indian payers involved in youth football at
some of the major English clubs.
16.00-17.30
The final session of the afternoon looked at working development models.
Mr Mick King, Community Development Officer at west Ham United, one of London's premiership clubs, produced details of
training programmes that he had developed at West Ham on an initiative funded by the English sports authorities sportengland.
In the eighteen months that the programme has been running, boys and girls of the age of eight upwards from the large South
Asian communities of London's East End had been encouraged to work at West Ham's training facilities in carefully designed
coaching regimes. Mr King's team, which included a number of both male and female South Asian football coaches, had
succeeded both in widening participation levels in the local Bengali communities and in producing talented individuals, two
of which were currently in negotiation with London clubs over professional contracts.
Dr John Hammond, Head of Sport Studies at UCN, outlined the organisational model that he had been involved in during his
25 years as a football development officer in Australia. He suggested that the Indian situation now was in many ways similar
to that of Australia before the government reorganised the sport back in the 1970s. He showed how football activities at all
levels had to be integrated and co-ordinated in order to guarantee that talented young players were identified and received
appropriate coaching. Well trained and accredited coaches needed to be in place at every level and for every age group, and
soccer academies for developing the most skilled of players needed to be at the head of networks of schools and regional
organisations which could regularly supply them with new talent. Organisation and integration at youth level had been the
key to developing Australia's football talent and the system had been a considerable success, producing over 60 players who
had played in the European leagues and recently sending the U16 team which made it to the final of last World Youth Cup.
The session ended with a plenary period chaired by Dr Paul Dimeo.
The delegates agreed that greater cooperation and sharing of knowledge and resources between those involved in football
in South Asian and those with experience of football among South Asians in the UK would bring significant change and a
number of networks were established.
Delegates agreed that they were grateful for the concern with Indian football expressed by the FIFA representative and
that renewed FIFA interest in the game in the sub-continent could bring change.
Delegates agreed that the AIFF had the potential to act as a catalyst for change in the game in India although some
disappointment was expressed with its record to date. Similarly disappointment was expressed with the performance of
Sapphire Enterprises, the company engaged by the AIFF to bring the Indian and Bangladeshi teams to the UK. A number of Asian
community sports groups such as Blackburn United and the Scottish Asian Sports Association, which had been eager to involve
the Indian team with their own activities to promote football to young South Asians in the UK, had had requests for
information and for representatives from the team ignored. Mr Chima Okerie stated that the fact that Sapphire had mainly
commercial objectives in running the tour meant that development opportunities had been missed.
The delegates agreed that the conference had been important both in creating a forum for UK South Asians and for Indians
to create new partnerships for football and in raising the profile of the game. As such it was agreed that a similar event
ought to be planned for next year at which progress would be charted and new projects planned.
Conclusion
The organisers of the conference, Dr Paul Dimeo, Lecturer in Sport Studies at UCN and Dr Jim Mills, Lecturer in History
at UCN, released the following statement.
'The Football India conference at University College Northampton has been a very successful event. We feel that all here
agreed on the rich history and the enormous potential of Indian football. We also saw a huge amount of energy generated
here for change in Indian football. We expect this energy to have beneficial effects both in India itself and among South
Asian communities in the UK. Ourselves, we aim to continue doing our bit by acting as coordinators for people wanting to
get involved with football and by bringing together, as has happened here today at UCN, a range of people who want to see
the game succeed both in India and in Britain. We hope that people who were not here today will contact us and join us at
future events'.
Conference 5 Recommendations.
1. Networking and Partnerships. These are to be developed and encouraged at all levels, both within South Asia and the
UK and between South Asia and the UK.
2. Communication. University College Northampton and the www.indianfootball.com website could be used as centres for the
exchange of information to enable and to strengthen the above networks.
3. Conference Papers. Selected conference papers will be prepared and published by Frank Cass UK in 2001.
4. Small Projects. Sensible and achievable projects that will have immediate impacts should be planned and executed
immediately, such as the translation of training videos into South Asian languages, the exchange of coaching materials etc.
5. AIFF and Sapphire. It was anticipated by delegates that the Indian Football Supporters' Club could become a forum for
greater inter-communication between the AIFF, Sapphire and the range of interest groups present at the Football India
conference.
Introduction
Keith Cooper, Director of Communications, FIFA
Professor J.A. Mangan,
'Football in Goa: sport, politics and the Portuguese in India'
The Present: identities and football culture
Chima Okerie, former player of East Bengal, Mohun Bagan and Mohammedan Sporting 'Chima and Calcutta - the magic years'
Novy Kapadia, Sports Writer, Telegraph and Sportsweek, Football Commentator for Star and ESPN 'The highs and lows of
Indian football'.
The Present: development and diaspora
Bill Adams, Director, Delhi Soccer Academy 'Education and soccer development in India'
Piara Powar, Co-ordinator of 'Kick It Out' Campaign 'Race, football and Asians in Britain'
Arunava Chaudhuri, Editor, The Indian Football Website, Organiser of the Indian Football Supporters' Club
'Indianfootball.com and organising the supporters' club'
The Future
Mick King, Community Development Officer, West Ham United 'West Ham Utd Asians in Football Project'
Dr John Hammond, Head of Sport Studies, University College Northampton 'The identification and development of football
talent - a model for India'