With the football leagues around Europe on a break for international friendlies, I decided to take a break as well from the hysteria surrounding the EPL and from dissecting the little trivia around the league to ponder on the happenings closer home in India. 3 different news articles caught my attention. The most significant one of those was India winning the Nehru Cup on penalties against Cameroon. I was elated that India had won against a footballing powerhouse in Cameroon (on a relative basis) with a FIFA ranking of 61, when I realized that it had been a Cameroon B team, while the newspapers had me believing that it was the senior side all along. Typical media houses trying to exaggerate whatever sporting success that we do have although conveniently side-stepping the achievement of our medal winner in the Paralympics. That is a topic of discussion for another time though.
What struck me about the Nehru Cup 2012 was the abysmal nature of participants in what is virtually India's biggest football tournament. While in its heydays, Nehru Cup has hosted such teams as Romania, Italy and Soviet Union, even after its 10 year hiatus, the standards have never been lower. While the 1997 tournament managed to attract teams like Iraq (FIFA rank 68 at the time) and Ghana (FIFA rank 57 at the time), even the 2007 version had the 107th ranked Syria and 2009 version had the 92nd ranked Lebanon as participants. The latest version however had abysmal participation with highest ranked team being Syria (FIFA rank at 147) while India was ranked the lowest at 168. That a Cameroon B team reached the final and was beaten only on penalties, really summed up the farcical nature of the tournament. Matches were virtually held in empty stadiums with the finals attracting a crowd of barely 10,000, while even the 1997 version had 60,000 fans turning up to watch India play virtually right through the tournament. The venue for 2012 as for 2009 was the dilapidated JLN stadium while there are several better exist to host the tournament. Also, why Delhi was chosen as the venue when i suspect many South Indian states and even soccer crazy Kolkata would have made for bigger crowds and better facilities is highly questionable. Frankly, with Indian FIFA rankings being at an all time low, it is not expected that many higher ranked teams will jump at the prospect of participating. A total prize money of US$200k is not a huge attraction either. Hence, winning the "coveted" 2012 Nehru Cup is really no achievement to be gung-ho about.
2 other news articles also piqued my interest. One, of Praful Patel, India's football chief (of running the national airline-to-the-ground fame) foolishly declaring that India is aiming to gain an entry into 2022 Qatar World Cup at the same time as we have hit our lowest ever FIFA ranking. And second of India's ambitious yet misguided bid to host the 2012 U-17 World Cup. I bet we can drive a train through the aim-reality gap that is on display here.
While FIFA may seem very interested for India to host the 2017 WC, given the nation's immense consumptive opportunity for football as a sport (which is blindingly obvious to all except the sports governing fraternity in India), we are certainly not going to achieve any of our footballing targets by hosting such farcical tournaments like the Nehru Cup.
What struck me about the Nehru Cup 2012 was the abysmal nature of participants in what is virtually India's biggest football tournament. While in its heydays, Nehru Cup has hosted such teams as Romania, Italy and Soviet Union, even after its 10 year hiatus, the standards have never been lower. While the 1997 tournament managed to attract teams like Iraq (FIFA rank 68 at the time) and Ghana (FIFA rank 57 at the time), even the 2007 version had the 107th ranked Syria and 2009 version had the 92nd ranked Lebanon as participants. The latest version however had abysmal participation with highest ranked team being Syria (FIFA rank at 147) while India was ranked the lowest at 168. That a Cameroon B team reached the final and was beaten only on penalties, really summed up the farcical nature of the tournament. Matches were virtually held in empty stadiums with the finals attracting a crowd of barely 10,000, while even the 1997 version had 60,000 fans turning up to watch India play virtually right through the tournament. The venue for 2012 as for 2009 was the dilapidated JLN stadium while there are several better exist to host the tournament. Also, why Delhi was chosen as the venue when i suspect many South Indian states and even soccer crazy Kolkata would have made for bigger crowds and better facilities is highly questionable. Frankly, with Indian FIFA rankings being at an all time low, it is not expected that many higher ranked teams will jump at the prospect of participating. A total prize money of US$200k is not a huge attraction either. Hence, winning the "coveted" 2012 Nehru Cup is really no achievement to be gung-ho about.
2 other news articles also piqued my interest. One, of Praful Patel, India's football chief (of running the national airline-to-the-ground fame) foolishly declaring that India is aiming to gain an entry into 2022 Qatar World Cup at the same time as we have hit our lowest ever FIFA ranking. And second of India's ambitious yet misguided bid to host the 2012 U-17 World Cup. I bet we can drive a train through the aim-reality gap that is on display here.
While FIFA may seem very interested for India to host the 2017 WC, given the nation's immense consumptive opportunity for football as a sport (which is blindingly obvious to all except the sports governing fraternity in India), we are certainly not going to achieve any of our footballing targets by hosting such farcical tournaments like the Nehru Cup.
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