Does Football need a Lalit Modi?

At the India Football Forum 2010 organised by SportzPower in New Delhi last month, Total Sports Asia CEO Marcus Luer came up with a controversial thesis that Indian football needs a Lalit Modi like character to take the game of football forward.

And to be honest I have been thinking on the same lines as Marcus about this. Some might say these guys are crazy, but not everything Lalit Modi has done to create Cricket's Indian Premier League is bad. Lalit Modi has created a multi-billion dollar property out of nothing. And he did it against all odds in India be it political, administration, etc.

One needs to think out of the box to create something like the IPL where sports meets big business and entertainment. India is a growing economic power house with money available for investment and sports is entertainment these days, this is how you attract the masses. But the money needs to be for projects which show return of investment or considerable brand value. And that is what the IPL has been able to create.
But would the football authorities allow this to happen?

I don't think that we need an IPL-style football league, we should rather concentrate on further developing the I-League. We have a base here with a strong foundation, but now the building has to come up in such a way that it becomes self-sustainable.
But as written in an earlier write-up we need a focus project towards which all our efforts are concentrated. And that could be a bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup. And such a bid would need a charismatic leader, someone well connected in India, but especially abroad.

So who could be the Lalit Modi kind of character, who is bold enough to fight his ideas through a system which is unwilling to change. I don't want to mention any names as it would be unfair on those guys, some of them being personal friends of mine. But there are these people and they need to come forward and take up the responsibility of building a better future for football in India.

If we in the end don't find a Lalit Modi like character maybe Lalit Modi himself would be interested to shift his focus from cricket to football. In cricket circles he seems to be unwanted these days that might be the chance for football to get him on board for projects like the above mentioned.
Mr. Modi are you listening? And are you interested?

India Football Forum 2010 - A Review

The first-ever India Football Forum 2010 was organised by SportzPower as part of their Knowledge Series at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on Thursday, May 27.

Five sessions were spread across the day to give an overview of the current scenario within Indian football and also show possible ways forward on how to develop Indian football. Sadly the forum date clashed with the final round of matches of the I-League therefore no club or player could participate or attend.

But still there were discussions, criticism was publicly made and possible steps forward discussed, only will these be implemented to take Indian football forward? That is the real question.

The opening address was held by AIFF General Secretary Alberto Colaco who explained to the gathered forum on how the AIFF is structured and run to manage football on the Indian sub-continent. This was followed by a presentation by Neel Shah, formerly with the Fan Development at Major League Soccer in North America. Neel showed how the MLS developed over the years with a focus on football specific stadia and an own fan base with a focus on certain communities who were known to have an interest in the sport.

This was followed by the first panel session under the title "Indian Professional Football... The Imperative is Change". I-League CEO Sunando Dhar gave the keynote speech before the panel started to discuss the situation within Indian professional football. The panel included Fraser Castellino, COO, Sports Marketing Business, UB Group; Marcus Luer, CEO, Total Sports Asia; Yogesh Joshee, Matchworld FIFA licenced Player Agent; and N.K. Bhatia, Secretary, Delhi Soccer Association.
And it was clear from the onset that changes are needed. The positive steps taken by Pune FC, Shillong Lajong FC and Viva Kerala were highlighted by Sunando Dhar, but Fraser Castellino and Marcus Luer stated that more changes were needed to take football forward. Marcus Luer made the controversial statement that Indian football needed a Lalit Modi like character to change Indian football for good. Some looked startled, some thought it was the right move to find such a man.

In the first session after the lunch break the AIFF and Panasonic highlighted how they came together to form a partnership. This was done by the AIFF Marketing Head Sukhvinder Singh along with Kunal Dua, Marketing Manager at Panasonic India. It showed that the AIFF were looking for a partner for Team India which they found in Panasonic, which benefited both the federation and the electronic consumer brand.

Then came the session "Grassroots Trail... Feeder Route for Future Stars" in which I myself was involved in. And I have to say the most important and also most entertaining session of the day, then we discussed the way forward for Indian football. I tried to explain that grassroot football isn't just youngsters playing football at Academies and football schools, but rather all kind of amateur football should be classified as grassroot.
Though ours was termed as a panel it was rather a session of separate presentations by the different speakers which included my friend Steve Bellis, Director, Kickworldwide; Anand Singh, Director Marketing, Coca-Cola India; Pratik Kumar, Programme Head of an NGO Magic Bus; Dr. Shaji Prabhakaran, Associate Vice President – Sport Business, TransStadia and former Head of AFC's Vision India Project; Vijay Barse, Founder, Slum Soccer - KVS; and myself in the end.
Steve made a speech which only he can do. A dry topic presented in such a hilarious way that people do listen to what he has to say, about his days at Stockport County and how he got involved to develop the Football Development Centre in Pune along with Viswajeet Kadam and FC Liverpool. There are a lot of things to learn from Steve and the approach he has taken. Though all speakers on this season had important things say and I'd like to talk about the man who with his simplicity, but his clear cut thought caught the imagination of the audience - Vijay Barse from Slum Soccer. It is a remarkable project in Nagpur which is spreading across India using football as a tool for the homeless and people at the lower end of society. After his speech Vijay got standing ovations for the work he has doing over the last decade. I was the last speaker of the group, so I spoke about the Bayern Munich Academy project in West Bengal which has sadly run into problems and then summed up the session.
I once more said grassroot football is a crucial element in our football development pyramid. If professional football is at the top of the pyramid, then grassroots football is at the bottom but as many children and adults as possible need to play football for the beautiful game to have a bigger reach in the coming years.

The last of the sessions was titled "What is Needed to Drive Football Ratings". It included Atul Pande, CEO, Ten Sports; Ravi Kiran, CEO for South East and South Asia - Starcom MediaVest Group; L.V. Krishnan, CEO, TAM Media Research; and Marcus Luer, CEO, Total Sports Asia. It looked at the importance of television coverage and its ratings for a sport to be able to grow in India.


In the end I want to congratulate SportzPower for organising such a first ever event! Such forums and conferences are needed to discuss Indian football. These knowledge forums are there for people from the industry and marketing world to learn about Indian football, then one thing was clearly evident to me, there is an sustained process needed to educate people about Indian football and football in India. The lack of knowledge plus wrong information and perceptions are hampering the development of the beautiful game as are weak management and lack of infrastructure...

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...