When the Ethiopian footballer, Fikru Teferra Lemessa, chipped the ball over the rival goalkeeper, the roar that reverberated through the Salt Lake Stadium could have been mistaken for a goal scored in a Mohun Bagan-East Bengal match. But this was of course the opening match of the Indian Super League (ISL) between Atletico de Kolkata and Mumbai City FC last Sunday where some 70,000 spectators had turned up. Such numbers are not unusual in the Salt Lake Stadium which can seat up to 120,000 spectators and where football fans still flock to witness a fabled rivalry that goes back nearly 100 years. But for the ISL to get that many spectators inside the stadium and root for a brand new city franchisee was no mean achievement.
The ISL, barely a week in existence, has certainly created a buzz. The eight city franchisees have brought together a fair number of international stars, albeit many of them somewhat long in the tooth, and the best footballing talent in India. The games so far have been of a reasonably good standard and played before healthy crowds. Not surprisingly the turnout has been higher in places like Kolkata and Guwahati, where football enjoys tremendous popularity, than in Delhi and Chennai.
The ISL has fulfilled some of its immediate goals of putting together an international quality domestic competition and attracting fans. It is of course way too early to predict whether some of the longer-term goals of the ISL, such as encouraging the masses to play football and to take India to the World Cup by 2026, will be fulfilled.
India’s current world ranking is an abysmal 158. Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski in their bestselling Soccernomics identified India as the “worst soccer team on earth” taking into account population, gross domestic product (GDP) and footballing experience. This has of course not always been the case. The 1948 London Olympics was the first time that India played football in the Olympics, the first real test for India on the world football stage, despite initial fears that the money to send the team would not be raised. In the London Olympics the Indian team, the majority of whom persisted in playing barefoot, impressed in the only match they played, losing 1-2 to France. The scoreline could have been different if India had not missed two penalties and conceded a goal seconds before the final whistle.
The 1956 Games represented the best-ever performance by the Indian football team in the Olympics. India got a walkover against Hungary, one of the stronger teams, in the first round. In the second round India convincingly beat hosts Australia, the highlight being a hat-trick by centre-forward Neville D’Souza from Bombay. In the semi-final India met Yugoslavia, who would eventually win the silver medal, before a crowd of 25,000 spectators. After a goalless first half, Yugoslavia won convincingly, 4-1. In the playoff for the bronze medal India was beaten by Bulgaria.
At the Asian level India had won the gold medal in the inaugural Asian Games in Delhi in 1951. The pinnacle of Indian football was perhaps reached at the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta, where it won its second football gold medal but against a much stronger field than in 1951. The Indian team led by Chuni Goswami, and with stars like P.K. Banerjee and Jarnail Singh, beat Japan and South Korea, both future Asian footballing powers, to win the gold. Since then it’s been mostly downhill except for a bronze medal in the 1970 Asian Games.
To recover some of the past glory, even at the Asian level, ISL is at best a start. For one, it’s not as if foreign players have been absent in Indian football leagues. The I-League, which began in 2007, has always had foreign footballers playing though none as famous as the marquee players turning out for the ISL teams.
This has not had a significant effect in improving India’s performance at the international level. Two, a growing spectator base for football does not necessarily translate into footballing success. The foreign football leagues, particularly the English Premier League, have a huge following in India. A few years ago it was estimated that the viewership for the English Premier League (EPL) stood at 38.5 million. But how many of these couch potatoes actually kicked a football is debatable.
There are also a few disconcerting signs of what might be called the IPL effect on the ISL. The heavy presence of Bollywood seen in IPL is equally present in ISL. The ownership of ISL or (IPL) teams by Bollywood stars is not the issue. Anybody with enough money is free to fully or partly own a sports team. But when the stars divert attention from the football pitch there is a problem. The television cameras and some of the spectators are far too obsessed with the presence of a John Abraham or Abhishek Bachchan in the stands. Besides there is a casual disregard for the really committed fans who make it to the stadium to watch the games. The Salt Lake Stadium, where all the stars descended for the inaugural match, had virtually non-existent facilities for food and drinks for the ticket-carrying fans. And this after the security had carefully confiscated any food or drinks that the spectators were carrying.
What is noteworthy about the ISL though is the number of cricketers who have bought stakes in the teams. The marriage of cricket with football, via stakeholders such as Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Virat Kohli, is an encouraging sign. Unlike the I-League, the ISL has already caught the attention of the world. The FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke has said that the ISL could help in attracting youngsters to play the game. Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger believes that the ISL can make football take off in India.
Only time will tell if the 10-week ISL will bring about a football revival in India. As of now the signs are at least encouraging.
The writer, a senior research fellow at ISAS and ARI, National University of Singapore, has finished writing a book on Indian sport
