2nd FICCI Sports Summit 'Turf2010': My Football presentation

I have received numerous request to give you more details on my presentation about Indian football and its future at the 2nd FICCI Sports Summit 'Turf2010' in New Delhi last week. Rather then mailing some of you the details, I thought of publishing these on my blog and giving you all a chance to go through those ideas. As I have written earlier I was part of the opening session titled "Changing Face of Indian Sports", which I also moderated.

And here are more details on what I presented to the audience on how I see Indian football moving forward in the next 10 to 20 years. First I gave the audience an overview on where Indian football stands today in the year 2010. Things in Indian football surely are looking up, but we need to speed-up our progress.

Here is where football in India stands in September 2010:

The interest in football was never as big as it is these days amongst youngsters, who especially following the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga and UEFA Champions League.

Though much smaller, the interest in Indian football is also growing especially in Team India.

We now look forward to India taking part in the 2011 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar in January 2011. (the first time in 27 years, the last time was 1984 in Singapore)

The Asian Football Confederation is pushing I-League clubs to professionalize under the AFC Club Licensing criteria. The clubs have a few months to comply or be thrown out of the I-League.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has generated interest in football unseen in this part of the world.

The India Under-20 side will play as a club side in the I-League as preparation for future World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers

European clubs are eyeing the Indian market (e.g. Manchester United have opened their first Café in Mumbai, Bayern Munich plan to build an Academy in West Bengal, further EPL clubs offer training)

I gave an overview to start off so everyone has a chance to read and understand where our football stands today. Things have happened over the last decade and there is a momentum in developing our football that needs to be pushed further.
I then mentioned the points that I see as crucial in the development of Indian football. I summed it up through these points:

The professionalization of administration and club management

Building of Infrastructure – Venues & training facilities

A sound young development system (grassroots, national Centre of Excellence)

Grow the fan base of football, not only international football but Indian football too

Success of Team India at the Asian level, then push for World Cup qualification.

Indian football needs a big long term aim in football. And that could be hosting the FIFA World Cup, a possible date would be 2030 with the support and backing from FIFA & the AFC. But then in the next five to seven years we need to build facilities to prove that our ambitions are serious.

As you can read, there are short-, mid- and long-term aims. The most important steps in our development are the professionalization of administration and club management plus the building of infrastructure. Everything else is build on these factors to take our football forward, like a better organised and run I-League, a sounds national team set-up and bidding to host an AFC Asian Cup in the next decade and the big prize a FIFA World Cup bid. It might sound unrealistic at the moment, but we need to get there so even talking about it at the moment is a start to achieve bigger goals. And it is easier for us to organise a FIFA World Cup, then qualify for one through the Asian qualifiers as long as FIFA doesn't decide to expand the 32 nation tournament.