Football Stories : How the beautiful game began in India, and its continued growth via the Indian Super League

Rohit SK takes us on a journey into the history of football in India, its growth as a sport, and where it is heading next in the era of the Indian Super League. Rohit also takes a look at some of India’s biggest clubs, and what the future holds for them.

Indian Football - how it started

The rise of football began in India long ago when a club called Mohun Bagan, established around the 1890s, became the first Indian team to win IFA (Indian Football Association) Shield before Indian independence. Football was meandering around with no defined path to follow, so no one really paid any attention!

Indian Football appeared in the spotlight when they qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil but it was not until the late 2000s that the Indian football team scored big. In August 2007, India won its first Nehru Cup beating Syria 1-0 in the finals. Now, the spotlight was on the young brigade of Indian football. They lived up to the expectations when they won the AFC Challenge Cup in August 2008 and as they say, history repeats itself. India again beat Syria in 2009 Nehru Cup final. These wins put a hope in Indians that the Indian football team could now be seen on the global map of football.

Indian Football - a recent history

India, which was once a sleeping football giant, has woken up with a bang.

First, the 2017 Fifa U-17 World Cup broke previous attendance records with over 1.3 million spectators. The global media attention garnered by the event helped develop sporting infrastructure, up-skill personnel and transfer knowledge to government organisations and businesses to stage major footballing events. As a result, India has now come a full circle by winning the hosting rights of the Fifa U-17 Women’s World Cup in 2020.

Second, the Indian Super League (ISL) , established in 2013, is leading the change in India as a developing football market. It has 155 million followers in the country and is the fifth biggest football league in the world in terms of average spectator attendance. It is behind only the Bundesliga (Germany), the Premier League (PL, the United Kingdom), La Liga (Spain) and Serie A (Italy), and ahead of the Major League Soccer (MLS, the United States of America), Ligue 1 (France) and Liga MX (Mexico).

Indian Super League - The future

With the introduction of ISL, Indian football became the talk of the town. We saw Indians sprawl near the ticketing counter to get tickets to the matches of their favourite ISL team and that is a growing trend that shows no signs of slowing down.

ISL targeted the Indians with something we all connect to a lot emotionally, our cities. ISL became a sudden hit and our players got the spotlight and even their social media presence had a sudden upsurge. Fans loved to see insights from their favourite players. ISL in partnership with Reliance Industries has come a long way and has achieved many milestones.

The growing popularity of football in India has prompted foreign leagues to engage Indian enthusiasts through customised grassroots training and outreach. The foreign clubs are FC Barcelona and Manchester United, amongst others.

India has evolved from a single sport nation to a multi-sport country. However, to further improve sports participation, there is a need to build a culture of sports in the country through better infrastructure, increased corporate investments and promotion by the Government. This will help unlock the untapped business potential of sports across the fields of marketing/sponsorship, sports management, sports goods and apparel, sports infrastructure and sports tourism.

Although the game was always popular across certain regions and pockets of society, the league has given it mainstream attention. The AIFF has established a Strategic Plan for the next 3 years

ALL INDIA FOOTBALL FEDERATION STRATEGIC PLAN 2019- 2022

1. Competition-oriented development

2. Pursue excellence

3. Go local (capacity building at state associations)

4. More opportunities for women

5. Infrastructure and legacy (including mega events)

6. Broad-basing the game

7. Use of technology to fast-track growth

With increasing smartphone penetration and falling data tariffs, online consumption of sports content is on the rise in India. Growing online viewership indicates the sense of comfort that users have with the digital medium. Online viewers are no longer a small, niche category.

Future of Indian Football Clubs

With the world still humming the FIFA song, India is experiencing its own wave of change. The countrymen have yet again started recalling our golden era of 1950-1964; the passion rekindled. India has a warm history of over 150 years with football, with some of the oldest competitions like the Durand Cup (1888) in our name. As the game continues to unite the world and the country, let’s take a look at some of the major Indian football clubs and their future

Mohun Bagan A.C.

Formed in 1889, it is the oldest surviving club of India, as well as among the oldest clubs of Asia. The club plays in I-league, the first professional league of India .The Kolkata based club has a streak of winnings in its name. It has won the Federation Cup 14 times, with a total trophy count of over 250, the highest by any Indian club. Notably, ‘Captain Fantastic’, Sunil Chhetri also began his professional career here, back in 2002.

The writing on the wall is clear. Mohun Bagan have lost their identity. They raised a false flag of rebellion last season as the self-appointed leaders of I-League outfits. In doing so, they were the first club to change the floor and desert others. I suspect they had no money to run the club this season.

It is hard to know what exactly transpired behind closed doors on the merger issue. But Mohun Bagan will no longer remain the same iconic club. Their corporate entity will outshine the legends of bare-footed local boys taming the villainous might of the British Army, very soon.From this we can say that Mohun Bagan will not have a great future.

So India’s oldest surviving top-tier football club, Mohun Bagan, and the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group which owns and runs Indian Super League side ATK FC have come together to establish a new football team, which in all likelihood will be called ATK Mohun Bagan.

The decision was coming and had a ring of inevitability to it but, when the official announcement was made on Thursday afternoon, Kolkata’s and India’s football fraternity took some time to grasp the enormity of the occasion.

Atlético de Kolkata (ATK)

ATK Football Club is owned by Kolkata Games and Sports Pvt. Ltd. which includes former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly For the first three seasons, Spanish La Liga club Atlético Madrid was also a co-owner but Goenka bought their shares in 2017. After the end of their partnership with Spanish giant, Atlético de Kolkata has been renamed to simply, ATK

The club is also the league's most successful club having won the title three times and, are the current ISL Champions. Although the club is successful, ATK has lost some of its investment so in order to maintain their future ATK has two options:

Merge with another club.

It wouldn’t be a bad Idea for ATK to merge with either of legacy club. After Atletico Madrid cut ties with its Kolkata branch, a lot changed for the two time ISL champions. From dropping attendance, Change of name, to getting some hatred from their own fans towards the club’s administrators.

Both the Kolkata clubs have their roots dug deep in the city. It cannot be replaced so easily because passion cannot be brought. ATK can best invest on it, work together with the club management in improving the infrastructure and conditions and try and earn some goodwill from fans after some disastrous statements about the legacy clubs meant the ISL franchise shot themselves in the leg.

Switch city and look for fresh start

Another option for the ISL side is to switch its city from Kolkata which is very unlikely to happen. But switching base and working from ground up can eventually help in generating both fans and local pool of players for future (Although the club would have to risk in losing a lot of its investment)

Bengaluru F.C.

Established in 2013, the club has carved a niche for itself in a short time. Competing in the ISL, it has bagged two titles, even winning one in their debut season.

Their most recent feat has been the Super Cup, with two Federation Cups already to their name. The club is considered among the new trendsetters for its professionalism, having players like Sunil Chetri playing for it.

The future of the club is safe because they have got a good team,coach and most of all a good management. Bengaluru FC has the highest revenues so no shortage of money and with this revenue they can do some experiments, scout and mould young talent and thus increase the talent of their squad. Their future is bright and they will try to win more titles along their successful journey.

Kerala Blasters

Established in 2014, The Kerala Blasters are known for their yellow home kit and is one of the widely supported clubs in India.They play their home matches at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kochi. The club has held the record for highest league attendance every season, regularly averaging over 40,000 fans a game.

The loyal fans of Kerala Blasters proudly call themselves 'Manjappada' or the yellow army. The Blasters have reached ISL finals two times but has never won a trophy. They had all the ingredients for success; a talented group of players, an inspiring and influential coach but the team was a failed experiment in the last two seasons.

By the time Blasters played their last home game, even the ‘Manjappada’ or seemed to have abandoned them. The attendance for the match between Kerala Blasters and Bengaluru was a mere 7754. So perhaps a rocky road ahead.

Summary of Football in INdia

As with all sports in India, there are likely to be some bumps in the road ahead for Indian Football. One thing is for certain, there is a loyal and growing fan-base, and the increase in available digital content should help give those fans further access to the sport they love.