EPL over I-League - Indian born confused English football fans?

Chelsea fans from India during the match between Chelsea and Malaysia XI in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia – Barring a few, can most Indian teams boast of such support?

With the new season of the Barclays Premier League set to begin this weekend, the football-crazy Indians are busy debating about the prospects of their favourite teams.

ESPN-Star Sports have jumped on the EPL bandwagon in India by announcing dedicated hindi commentary for matches, and also signing popular youth icon and Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to promote their broadcast of the multi-million pounds league.

What is worth pondering over is why the folks in India (mainly the urban youth) prefer to actively follow the fortunes of teams far away from India – based in a country most might never come close to visiting, and a league where the closest Indian connections have been Indian-origin players Michael Chopra, who played for Newcastle United and Sunderland, and Harpal Singh, who began his career at Leeds United – to following the teams in the I-League which are Indian city-based franchises.

There is no doubt about the fact that the quality of football and talent of players in the Premier League is far superior to that in the I-League, but the keen following, which the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal garner in India, means that the promotions and publicity teams at the clubs are doing their jobs well, while their I-League counterparts haven’t able to do so, despite having the advantage of being able to leverage the home connection.

A Mumbai lad is almost surely going to prefer going to the Manchester United Café to watch an EPL game, over going to Cooperage to watch Mumbai FC play. Same can be said about football fans in other cities too.

Director of the Indian national football team, Subhankar Mukherjee, while trying to not sound critical of Dhoni’s decision to promote the Premier League, suggested that the cricket captain should look at promoting Indian football too, “It is nice that MSD is promoting the (Premier) League. But, the point is – it is already well-known across the world and flushed with funds. In fact, we would wish Dhoni to support Indian football someday. Shah Rukh Khan has gone on record to say that he wants to buy a football team. Who knows, MSD may also buy a soccer team in India. That would be just great! We have had stars like Leander Paes supporting football, and we need more poster boys, who can promote the game.”

Indian football legend Bhaichung Bhutia is more optimistic about the increase in visibility of Premier League and feels that it would lead to popularizing the sport in the country, “It’s nice whenever celebs endorse or support a particular sport. When popular stars – of films or sport – promote a game, it gains popularity and attracts advertisers’ interest. Football is one of the most popular sports in the world. Unfortunately, in India, it hasn’t got its financial due or gained advertisers’ attention. But, if a cricketing star supports it, things will slowly change for better.”

While the clubs in Kolkata enjoy strong following from their fans, the same can’t be said about the other I-League clubs, with many just wishfully hope to fill up the stands during the matches. The AIFF had tied up with IMG-Reliance to promote the Indian football, but all it ended up doing was creating yet another controversy, which doesn’t bode well for promotion of the domestic league in the country.

Clubs like Bengaluru FC have opened up their facilities to the fans in the pre-season to allow them to interact with their star players like Sunil Chhetri and Robin Singh, and this is certainly a step in the right direction.

Whether such kind of initiatives will help increase the profile and visibility of the I-League, it remains to be seen. Will the I-League popularity ever eclipse that of the Premier League? From the looks of it, most definitely not, at least in the near future.

While this article is written on the occasion of India’s 67th Independence Day, it’s not aimed at preaching that nationalism is supporting the domestic league over a foreign one. I myself am eagerly looking forward to the start of the new Premier League season (alongside actively following the buzz from the I-League circuit).

However, the article is meant to give you food-for-thought for why you (at least most of you) prefer to follow football leagues played in foreign lands, while ignoring (relatively) the sport’s competitions played back home.

Surely, there’ll be lessons to be learnt for the fans, the teams and the media. Everyone wants to be the next David Beckham or Cristiano Ronaldo. But when will someone want to be the next Bhaichung Bhutia or Sunil Chhetri?