Me lecturing at the IISWBM

I have visited the Indian Institute of Social Welfare & Business Management in Kolkata a number of times over the years, but I have only lectured there at their Sports Management course a couple of times back in 2004 around the India vs Japan qualifier for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Some of their students had then worked under me in organising the game as exposure and experience.

Now I was back at the Institute after Prof. Subrato Datta had invited me a few months back to lecture there once more. So on Friday, February 18, I was back to give the students a lecture/presentation about professional football in Europe with a focus on the German Bundesliga as a potential role model for the I-League and Indian football in general. And towards the end I had a special guest turn up in my friend and former French international Vikash Dhorasoo, which really got the boys excited.

I followed it up with another session on Wednesday, February 23 which was more question&answer then a lecture, where I told the boys more about how European professional football is organised and run; but also pointed out the problems of Indian football and sports in India in general plus that they as sports management students need to bring in professionalism into the sports that they would get involved with, learning best practices from around the world and focus on the sports persons & their needs.

I do speak to audiences and make a number of presentations over a calendar year, but it is different with students and I try to make it as interactive as possible so they learn something from what I am trying to teach them. And I hope it works...