New AIFF Technical, Coaching & Development Committee formed, Baichung as chairman

A few weeks ago it was reported that former India captain Baichung Bhutia has been given the role of chairman of the AIFF Technical, Coaching & Development Committee by the national federation; a body which has been defunct for a number of years.

Baichung Bhutia has replaced former AIFF vice-president C.R. Viswanathan as the committee's chairman, while former Goa Football Association secretary Savio Messias has been appointed vice-chairman of the AIFF Technical, Coaching & Development Committee.

Other members of the committee are former Indian international footballers Parminder Singh, Prasun Banerjee and Henry Menezes along with official Lalnghinglova Hmar of Mizoram.

The new AIFF Technical, Coaching & Development Committee has been appointed for a term from 2013 to 2016.

VIDEO: Heineken - The Candidate

International beer brand Heineken is one of the UEFA Champions League sponsors. Here a funny Heineken job interview, then normally it is about standard questions. Prepared answers. If job interviews are all the same, how to find the right talent among 1734 applicants? Watch the video for the answer...

Bollywood Stars & Cricketers to play football for a good cause

It is a known fact that there are big football fans in Bollywood and amongst the Indian Cricket team and for a good cause titled 'Playing for Humanity' these stars will raise money for NGO Magic Bus.

The match will be played on March 30 in New Delhi and it is being managed by GS Worldwide Entertainment and the All Stars Football Club

"ASFC is a lot of fun. We plan to do great work. It's raising the awareness for a great game, to popularise it and to raise funds and it's a very noble gesture and I'm looking forward to playing," Abhishek Bachchan said in a press release.

Ranbir Singh added, "I'm fortunate to be one of the founders of the club. Bunty Walia (GS Entertainment) came with this brilliant idea and all the profits go to the charity organizations and I think it's a great cause."

The Bollywood team will be led by Abhishek Bachchan which will also include Ranbir Singh and Arjun Kapoor; while Cricket World Cup star Virat Kohli is the captain for the Indian cricket team, which also includes Mahender Singh Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh.

VIDEO: East Bengal to set-up Academy in Rajganj

ABP Ananda reports that Kolkata giants East Bengal Club are planning to open an Academy in Rajganj, Jalpaiguri district in the north of West Bengal state. The club plans to have a full-fledged Academy for boys aged 12 to 18 with all necessary facilities.

VIDEOs: Footballers Model at Kolkata Fashion Week

On Saturday night five footballer in Mehtab Hossain, Syed Rahim Nabi, Tolgay Ozbey, Odafe Onyeka Okolie and ex-goalkeeper Kalyan Chaubey scorched the ramp at the Kolkata Fashion Week. The quintett did a good job and got a lot of praise in their assignment as models.

Here the ABP Ananda report

Here the XtraTime report

VIDEO - Times Now: Footballer Mahesh Thapa dies after on-field collision

Tragic scenes on a football pitch in North Bengal as 25-year-old Mahesh Thapa became the latest victim of an on-field collision when Mahesh, a striker with Chhayachhobi Club colliding with Parasmoni Club goalkeeper Sachin Rai in a local tournament.

Eye witness, said, "The goalkeeper's knee hit Mahesh's chest and he fell down after that. Everyone asked him if he could play and he said he cannot play and he got up. After getting up he collapsed again."

Video - Nike Football Ad: My Time is Now

Here comes the latest football commercial from Nike titled 'My Time is Now'.

As Nike describes it: The next wave are here. Neymar, M'Vila, Götze. Hungry to break through. Unafraid to line up with Ribéry, Sneijder, Ronaldo. Followed by thousands more. Ready for the chance. Are you?

Pepsi India launch Amateur T20 Football Tournament

Only a few weeks ago Pepsi India started the new 'Change the Game' campaign in which it is moving away from cricket and towards football. Now Pepsi India is taking the campaign to the next level with a football tournament for amateurs from across India titled Pepsi T20 Football, which simply said is a 7 A-Side tournament.

The Pepsi T20 Football concept is a format for amateurs, which according to Pepsi India combines the excitement and fun of T20 style of playing with the speed, thrill and spirit of football. The winners of this nationwide tournament will get a chance to play football, the Pepsi T20 way, against the Indian cricket stars; while they also will get coached by an to be named international football star for this game.

To be part of the Pepsi T20 Football experience, amateur footballers between the age of 14 - 30 years can register in seven-member teams at designated venues. It is open to all Indians with on ground registrations possible, while the matches will be organized in Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Lucknow, Ludhiana and New Delhi.

The registration process began today in Chennai and the tournament will run until June 2012. 64 teams from each city will compete in the knock-out 20-minute matches and the top 32 will compete in the respective city finales. The city finale will be organized in a unique metallic cage at a public venue with lots of music, fun and Pepsi. A total of eight teams, including one winning team from each city and one wild card entry will compete to emerge as 'Game Changers'. The winners will then get the opportunity to be coached by an international football star before they face the Indian Cricket Stars at the Grand Finale.

The tournament will be supported by a 360-degree approach including on-air, outdoor & on-ground initiatives; special edition packaging and digital engagement programmes. Pepsi has partnered with ESPN-Star Sports, who will produce and showcase the tournament in a special 8-episode series, starting April 2012.

To register go to www.pepsichangethegame.com .

VIDEO: So what can a van full of footballs do to a game of cricket?

Pepsi India has changed strategy and is now using football as a marketing tool rather then cricket in the past. Here a lovely video on this!!!

August 31: Most important Day in Football Calendar?

Today is August 31, the final day of the summer transfer window in European club football. Some call it the most important day of the European football calendar with a number of clubs frantically trying to get transfers done before the midnight deadline when the transfer window closes until the winter transfer window in January.



While some clubs hope to lure their targets from other clubs at the last moment, there are other clubs who are looking to strengthen their squads after weak starts to their campaigns in their domestic leagues, while others are trying to offload excess players from their roaster and wage bills.



Friends who are Director of Sports, managers and agents say these are the busiest days of the year; then even clubs who have settled teams sometimes can suddenly be forced to look for options due to injuries or other reasons.



And if one follows those running tickers of major football websites and newspapers it is often really interesting and sometimes even surprising what kind of deals go through at the last moment.



So enjoy the day and follow the transfers...

First 'Global Player Migration Report'

This is an interesting piece of statistics on which countries footballers come from and go to.

The first edition of the Global Player Migration Report analyses the international transfers of footballers occurred during the 2010 calendar year to 101 first or second division leagues of 69 national associations worldwide. This study is the fruit of collaboration between the 'Professional Football Players Observatory' and the English-based data provider SoccerAssociation.com.

The Global Player Migration Report analyses the international transfers that occurred in 2010 to 104 leagues belonging to 69 national associations from around the world. The first chapter analyses player importation, the second studies their export, and the third deals with the question of networks linking the departure and arrival countries. Throughout the report, data on international flows are interpreted taking into account the criteria of age, position and origin of players involved.


Imports

Cyprus is the most active national association for the import of players, both in absolute and relative terms. In 2010, clubs of the Mediterranean island have recruited 219 foreign players from abroad. This figure represents an average of 7.8 per team. The first non-European association in this ranking is the United States of America. This reflects the increasing appeal of the Major League Soccer (MLS) and its greater inclusion in the global transfer market for footballers.

When it comes to re-imports, Brazil is at the top of the table. On the whole, 135 players from this country came back home to play for first or second division clubs, of whom 10 just for Flamengo. The return migration of Brazilian and more generally South American footballers is a key feature of the contemporary global player circulation system.

Clubs of the top division Brazilian league have imported the oldest foreign players (on average 29 years of age), while teams of the Italian second division championship have recruited the youngest ones (22.8).


Exports

The three national associations having exported the most local players are Brazil (280), Argentina (215) and Serbia (150). While 103 associations have exported at least one national player to the leagues surveyed, 27% of these flows originate from one of these three countries. This figure is 50% if we take into account the 10 associations exporting the most local footballers.

Almost 80% of Ghanaians who migrated in 2010 are midfielders or forwards. Generally speaking, a greater part of international flows concern players in these positions (63.5%). This figure is higher for Africans (81%) and South Americans (69.2%), than for Central or North Americans (63.2%), Asians or Oceanians (58.7%), and Europeans (59.3%). When it comes to recruiting African or South American footballers, importing clubs seldom seek defensive ones.

England is by far the most re-exporting national association. In 2010, 241 foreign footballers moved away from this country to clubs in the other championships analysed, of which 111 from the Premier League (5.5 per club on average). This shows the challenge that many players face to settle down at the heart of the world football economy.


Networks

The most used pathways for international migration are those having led players from Brazil to Portugal (95, and 21 the other way around), from England to Scotland (67, and 24) and from Argentina to Chile (56, and 29). The latter country plays a stepping stone role for Argentinian players who then move up to Mexico.

Brazilians can be considered as the authentic global football workforce. In 2010, they have moved across borders to clubs located in 58 distinct national associations out of 69. This figure is much higher than for any other player origin: Argentina (44), Serbia (40), Croatia (36) and Nigeria (35).

After Portuguese clubs, those having imported the most footballers from Brazil are in Asia: South Korea (15), Japan (14) and Iran (12). While South-North networks are historically well established, South-South ones are rapidly developing. From this perspective, South America can be considered as the real hub of the globalisation of the player transfer market.

The story of Seychelles FF & Andrew Morrison

Have you read or heard about the story of the Seychelles Football Federation looking to appoint a new national coach and then appointing the wrong Andrew Morrison. A great story but major embarrassment for the island nations federation.

Here the story from the start.

A certain Andrew Amers-Morrison, a junior coach who runs the Samba Street Soccer School for disadvantaged kids in London, travelled to the Seychelles for a holiday but he was mistaken by the Seychelles FF to be Andrew Charles Morrison, a former Scottish footballer best known as a former Manchester City defender.

The SFF chairman Suketu Patel had said at the time, "We thought we were getting the real Andy Morrison, but instead we have an impostor."

The SFF originally offered Andrew Amers-Morrison a two year contract which he accepted. But when the SFF realised their mistake they asked their newly signed national coach to come for a meeting. Surprisingly Andrew Amers-Morrison wasn't fired, but rather given a six month contract to prove himself to the SFF. And if successful he could be given a long term contract.

An unbelievable story, but life sometimes is as crazy like this...

Thanks for the feedback!

I wanted to thank all those of you for their feedback via mail, the blog, Facebook and Twitter on my recent entry about me being offered the job of chief coach at an Indian club. I didn't know that so many thought that I would be capable of actually being a club coach. To be honest I myself have some real doubts...

Also I wanted to thank you all generally for the replies on my blog and its entries! It has now been nearly eight month's since I started writing and I really enjoy it as you might realise with the amount of articles that I written over time. And it is great to see that so many people are following what I am writing.

It looks like better times are ahead for Indian fotball. And let's see where next my football journeys take me...


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Me, Arunava, as an Indian Club Coach?

Over the years I have received many offers in football, some really interesting one's while others were more offtrack. And they have come from around the world - be it Europe, India, Dubai or even from the Caribbean and North America. But this one I am writing about will be a real highlight in my working career in football and maybe a one-time offer.

A few days ago a club in India, whom I will not name but know well, asked me for my opinion on a new coach that they wanted to appoint. Originally the discussion was about naming an Indian coach, but none of quality as I told them was free in the market. Then they wanted to look at options abroad, but soon realised that a quality foreign coach was out of their budget range. We came back to discussing Indian names, but again none seemed to work for them.

Then out of the blue the club officials asked me, why don't you take-up the role of chief coach in our club. I was stunned, surprised and honoured at the same time that I was asked the question as I have no official coaching degree to my name. When I asked them why, the officials told me, you understand football, have travelled and worked with teams and know the players; and that not only in India but also abroad.

I wanted to say directly no, but after some discussions decided to at least sleep over such a decision. The thoughts were, do I want to leave media and management to go into coaching? Would I be able to do it? Would I be working to my strengths or rather to my weaknesses? Loads of things went through my head, but in the end I decided against it. At least at the moment coaching isn't something which I would pursue and then as the head coach of a club.

Actually becoming a coach would have been another chapter in what I have done over the years in football, especially Indian football. But I have actually done some coaching work in the past besides playing. But forget just being a correspondent, commentator, expert on television and radio, writing for print, online and my blog. Then there have been the tasks of travelling with teams as liaison officer, press officer, translator and team manager. I've been consultant on football matters and early this year worked on a project about putting a professional I-league team together in Bangalore. And only recently I got the chance to play for the FC Bayern Munich Allstars against East Bengal Allstars in Kolkata.

But if I was asked about opportunities in the future to work to my strengths and skills I would rather be a team manager (director of sports), involvement in sports management or continue in broadcasting and media.

What I love about football is that I get to do so many different things. For me football surely is the beautiful game, but there are some things which I most probably shouldn't do...

VIDEO of the Charity Golf Tournament 2010

On September 24, 2010 a charity golf tournament was held at the Golf & Landclub Coesfeld e.V. for the charity "Kinder sind unsere Nr.1". The charity golf saw a number of former German footballers, amongst them Andreas Koepke and Lutz Pfannenstiel, taking part besides local golf players.

The event was able to raise some funds and those who took part had an enjoyable day out in the rain!

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.

2nd FICCI Sports Summit 'Turf2010'

The 2nd FICCI Sports Summit 'Turf2010' was held on September 30/October 1 at the auditoriums of the FICCI in New Delhi. And I had the pleasure of being part of it taking about the future of Indian football in the session "Changing Face of Indian Sports", which I was also asked to moderate.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is an association of business organizations in India, headquartered in the national capital New Delhi. FICCI is one of the main organizations to fund and support many governmental and non-governmental educational institutes. And sports is one area in which the FICCI has become more proactive in recent times. Last year FICCI organised their first-ever Sports Summit and now this year the event was held just days before the Commonwealth Games.

The summit was opened by speeches from FICCI president Rajan Bharti Mittal, FICCI sports committee chairman Atul Singh, Commonwealth Games organising committee president Suresh Kalmadi, and Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Just days ahead of the games the FICCI was supportive of the organisers, but said that afterwards there would need to be a retrospection and check on accountability. India needed to learn from its mistakes otherwise they would just be a waste. And FICCI made it a point that they stand for transperancy.

The first session titled "Changing Face of Indian Sports" was headed by myself which included speeches from H.S. Kingra (Joint Secretary, Sports Authority of India; & CWG head for infrastructure), Ashwini Nachappa (Arjuna Awardee, Olympian and a former actress), Akash Jain (Director, International Development - India, NBA) and a presentation by myself to talk about football and its future.


So what do I think about what needs to be done to development Indian football in the future? 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.

The other sessions of the day were "Business Opportunity in Sports- Vision 2020", "Money, Marketing and Modern Sports" and "Sports for All". On day two there were further sessions under the titles "Sports Infrastructure: Creation & Management", "Emerging Technologies - Benefits for Sports", "Role of Media in Sports", "Creating Sports Culture in India", and then a final session as a resume of the two days of presentations and discussions. The day ended with an official dinner.

And what was the gist of all the talking? Simply put let the private industry and professionals run sports in India. The change is happening with the sporting fraternity and within two/three years things would change for good as India is developing overall as a nation. And the country will start to only accept success and perfect organisation. Many hope the Commonwealth Games will be a wake-up call for all of India and it will be heard by the right persons, so change can happen.

Then hope is what dies last...

August 31, an important day in football

Some of you might be thinking now, why is Arunava writing that August 31 is an important day in football. What is today? Is there an important football match? A crucial FIFA meeting? Or something else which I don't remember.

No. It is the last day of the international summer transfer period and the day evolves with a number of surprising last minute transfers. It happens to be one of the most active days in football, but with the action being rather off the field. The club managements try to make last minute signings, get rid of unwanted players and look at bringing in players on loan which they can't afford or loan out players they wants to offload. Phone lines and mobile phones across Europe will be active plus in peripheral leagues around the globe where players of interest play.

At the last moment clubs often hope to make a bargain or are willing to pay higher fees for a player they have wanted all summer long. But sometimes deals just don't happen even if a players wants to leave or join a club.

For the first time India is also part of the global transfer calendar. Still the transfer system is divided in India into local transfers of players only switching clubs within a local or state FA and the 'bigger' transfers called the Inter-State Transfers which need to be cleared by the All India Football Federation just like international transfers of player coming into India or leaving the country. And for the first time the transfer period extended to two and a half months, which so far in India has been a 20 to 30 day period in May or June. This also gave the clubs and players the chance to choose better amongst their options or should have done so as we look forward to the new season.

Football IPL - the future for India?

Is an IPL-style football league the answer to Indian football's woes?

I personally have severe doubts. The game of football cannot be compared with cricket or any other sport for that matter. The football league system has been in place across the globe for many decades and even in India the national league under different names has been around for now 14 years.

The I-League, India's Professional Football League, currently at the end of its third season is still in a developmental stage and the path taken by the All India Football Federation in expanding the league by two teams every years seems to be slowly bearing fruits. But it has a long way to go to be a real professional league.

Since the old National Football League was renamed after 11 seasons to I-League three years back the league has grown in size, the general standard of football has improved and the game has spread to new centres like Shillong and Pune. And in the new season the AIFF plans to add New Delhi and Bangalore to the league. But at the moment it isn't clear if new sides will receive the slots or if existing teams will be given those with no other choice.


Would a Football IPL hamper the I-League's development?

It depends on what plans the people behind the Football IPL have.

The information currently available is very patchy and different sources say different things with the people behind the project being very tied-lipped. This makes it difficult to judge the ideas and plans.

If it is planned as a six/seven week summer intermezzo, then surely it wouldn't have such a big effect on the I-League.

Then such a football IPL could actually supplement the I-League and the two could co-exist.
Still if finance, media coverage and fan focus is taken away from the I-League to the Football IPL, then it would hamper the further overall development of the game.


But there are loads of things which one would have to look at to make a Football IPL a reality.

Who would be the players, is there space in the international football calendar and many more issues.

A non-starter is getting the current stars of world football to play in India due to their allegiance to their respective clubs and countries. Then you have football World Cup’s and Continental championships every other year. So a football IPL would have to rely on players who have just retired or former stars.

Would a Zinedine Zidane come out of retirement to play a Football IPL?
I would say no, except he is offered a ridiculous amount of money which he has to accept.

Further questions would be, would Industrialists be willing to pay big bucks for such former stars, would the Indian public like to see such players in action. And how would be the local Indian players fit in.


A key question which no one seems to look at is infrastructure. We don’t have the stadia to host such a four/five city football IPL at the moment.
It reminds me of the English Premier League's match 39 idea which had India on their radar as one of the potential venues around the globe though we didn't even fulfil the basic criteria to be able to host such a game.


But still the Football IPL is an idea which should be pursued and evaluated if something worthwhile could be developed. Only it shouldn’t hamper the general development of Indian football or take money away from the I-League and the national team.

It should be more about football first, then about entertainment and money.
The ongoing IPL fiasco should be a stern warning.


Do let me know if you agree with me or have a different opinion on this...