Interview with Dr Shaji Prabhakaran - ex AIFF

Dr Shaji Prabhakaran has seen many sides of Indian football. He has been a Manager & Coach at the CFA (Chandigarh Football Academy) and he followed that up with a stint at AIFF (All India Football Federation) as the Director Vision & National Teams. In between being the founder of the Football Khelo Foundation and being the General Manager at SE TransStadia Limited he made time for us to share his thoughts on many different aspects of football in India.

Harmit: Please tell us about yourself, your family and childhood. Did you ever imagine that football would be a such big part of your profession so to speak. How did you end up doing a course at the Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education ?

Shaji : Born in Kerala and brought up in a place called Binnaguri, part of Dooars area of North Bengal, studied in KVS Binnaguri before moving to Gwalior for graduate and post graduate studies. Very fortunate to grow up in a sports friendly environment – was it school or locality. I was hooked to football from an early age and football being No. 1 sport of Dooars area at that point of time stimulated my interest towards football more than any other sport. When I was 15 I become part of Binnaguri tea garden team and that journey lasted only for another 7 years because of serious knee injury.

Frankly speaking I never imagined during my playing days and student life that football will become my serious profession.

I was greatly influenced by football in life and always wanted to continue in sports, therefore, Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education became a very natural choice for me after +2. Moreover, few of my best seniors from sports joined LNIPE and they become my guiding light in pursuing a career in sports. However, the reality is that I wanted to improve myself as a player and I thought LNIPE would be a good place to be in. But after getting exposed to sports education my entire perception changed about sports in general and football in particular. Further, my knee injury also diverted me to concentrate more on academics of sports then becoming a player, and then started a journey for a new path in sports profession. That journey still continues and I am happy that it is in the right direction.

Harmit : How did the opportunity at CFA come about? Why have we not seen any break out player coming out of the CFA? How do you rate CFA as an academy by itself and in comparison to say TFA (Tata Football Academy).

Shaji : Once I completed my PhD in June 2000 I was looking for an opportunity to work in football and in August I came to know about CFA and its plan through a news story. Within next few days I resigned my college lecturer job in Delhi and made an application to CFA for a coaching position. To my good fortune I started working with the Academy even before the approval of my application because of ex-international Harjinder Singh who was the chief coach of the academy. My association with CFA lasted for four years and it was a great experience to put my knowledge in application.

It is going to be difficult for CFA to produce international standard players if they don’t change some basic fundamentals of their operations, and talent identification and development structures. The basic problem is that time spent by CFA on talent identification is too short and when talents are spotted from a heterogeneous training group – coming from no or little exposure to organize training program and lack of proper grassroots structure the probability of getting wrong talent is always high. Therefore, CFA rather than taking 9 and 10 years old directly to residential academy they should work with that age group in non-residential schemes in different venues of North India and ideally they should work with 500-1000 children in U-8, U-10 and U-12 categories for minimum 2-3 years in non-residential set-up. After three years CFA should decide which of U14 players to induct in the residential program for 3-5 years. I think they can easily finance this part of the project since cost on residential scheme will drastically come down if they follow above model.

The other major problem with CFA is that they are graduating out players when the players are just 17 years old and CFA has no tie-up with any of the clubs by which these players can be taken care by club or another agency for their continuous development. This situation has a negative impact on players, and when players are out of CFA they find it difficult to engage them in a professional training environment. The other problem is that these players are only visible at a school competition or at the most at Subrato Cup once in a year and when our clubs does not have pro-active approach towards scouting talents then a genuine talent from places like CFA go unnoticed.

TFA is a well established academy in India but it has to go several notches up to become world class. When I started with CFA my mission was to make CFA the best academy in India but in my journey I realized government academies have limitations and there are many red-tapes which not only delays but also blocks adopting best practices. In the given scenario CFA’s of India should have strategic partnership with TFA so that the effort made by every element of football pyramid does not go waste. After all CFA and TFA are investing significant funds to promote and develop football talents for India, and if any partnership happens and things improve it will be great for football in India.

Harmit : How did your move to the AIFF come about? What was your specific role at AIFF?

Shaji : After achieving my goals with CFA I was looking for next challenge and in 2004 I directly approached AIFF and discussed my willingness to join AIFF. To my disbelief I received the positive news faster than expected from AIFF. Very fortunate to get that opportunity to work with AIFF and initially I was given a role of youth development and coach education including national team coordination and a year later I was also given the role of managing Vision India Project.

Harmit : Could you tell us please some of the key things that you personally implemented or oversaw that moved Indian Football forward and give you the greatest satisfaction?

Shaji : Implementing and initiating few grassroots projects given me great satisfaction, and also the initial success of Manipur Vision India Project. But all that was a team effort.

Harmit : Could you please tell us any key initiatives that you personally wanted to implement but could not do so. Any programs or policies or missed opportunities that you look back at with regret?

Shaji : There were many initiatives which I wanted to implement including a robust structure for youth development. But at the end no regret…..

Harmit : Do you think that more than any other thing, the commercial success of the IPL has changed the rules and the sports federations will feel the need to perform and deliver as there seems to be a market for well produced sports/entertainment?Shaji : IPL has become a benchmark event in Indian sport and entertainment market. Further, whole of India is only talking about IPL since majority of India for the first time has witnessed something like IPL in sports, and most of them want only IPL duplication in other sports. Therefore, the expectations have gone up and it is only good for sports industry in India. Those who can improve their structure and establish professionalism will survive in the market. Other sports federations should take this opportunity as a challenge and improve its brand. Indian market has the space and size to build more than a dozen IPL like sports events. IPL has shown to the world there is a big market for sports in India and this scenario is an advantage for other sports to structure it as per the market demands and needs.

Harmit : How much of a boost do you feel that Sunil Chhetri playing in the MLS will provide to the young footballers across India?

Shaji : Sunil Chhetri signing for MLS team will greatly inspire young generations to aspire for playing in the top leagues abroad and it further lifts the profile of Indian football. I think Sunil’s move will also inspire foreign scouts to look towards India to find talents.

Harmit : Are there any specific plans to improve the state of football as far as girls and womens teams are concerned. We seem to be spending a lot of time, attention and money only on the mens game.

Shaji : I think Women’s football team should also be given good attention since they have good potential to move up the ladder in Asia and world. We need to prolong their engagement with Indian Football through new sets of competitions and training programs. The problem is that club culture does not exist in women football in majority of States and most of the women players end up playing 3-5 competitive matches in a year and by which many women players migrate to other sports. Once Punjab and Kerala was good at Women Football but now these States are fast disappearing from the scene. Opportunities for women football must improve and authorities must attract as many women as possible to join football to carry out various functions.

Harmit : Tell us a little bit about the your Football Khelo foundation please.

Shaji : My plan with Football Khelo Foundation is to work with large number of youth and attract them towards football with a vision to make football as one of the most attractive medium for development of youth and society. But project is still in conceptual stage and I go down to implementation stage in next few years time after making sure all the resources are in place for its successful implementation.

Harmit : There have been some reports about Reliance and IMG planning some kind of a IPL like league for football. Do you think such a possibility exists and is such a plan feasible?

Shaji : Each of us understands that I-League has to improve otherwise our national team will not improve and moreover, league does not become a viable commercial sports entity. Now AFC has set-up an Ad-hoc committee to do the same and this is the third time such an initiative is planned by AFC. We have to wait and see how that moves forward.

I have not heard about Reliance & IMG JV getting involved with Indian Football and starting IPL like venture in football. However, for AIFF it is important to have right partners to develop the league and other aspects of football, and if there are any opportunity that exist for AIFF to work with best of companies then AIFF should always welcome them and work closely for the growth of football in India. It is also the fact that I-League in India has a far greater scope of improving its brand value and it can be repackaged so as to make it attractive towards market. Therefore, possibility and feasibility to make I-league one of the top sports properties in India does exist. Both IPL and I-League are competitive format in two different sports but in terms of its value both are poles apart. The difference are due to governance, branding, packaging, fan base, facility, galaxy of stars, promotion, entertainment, glamour quotient, funding, big corporate involvement, huge television audience, etc. Therefore, if I-league can address each of these aspects on a time-bound plan then I-League can create right value proposition similar to IPL and become competitive in market place.

Harmit : Overall, where do you see football headed in India in the next few years?

Shaji : I am optimistic that football in India will grow faster in next few years time. Firstly, with Mr. Praful Patel at the helm I am more than confident that he will bring about required changes in the system and put a professional structure in place much faster. Secondly, investment will increase in football from corporate side and that will help in addressing the gap in funding and infrastructure side. Thirdly, world is looking at Indian Football with great optimism and with few big brands involvement in Indian Football things might take huge positive turn. Finally, India with largest youth population will find football the best medium to connect to the world and thus market in India will reset itself to back football in a big way.

Harmit : Tell us a little bit about your new role at SE TransStadia Limited please.

Shaji : At TransStadia I am head of Sports and very closely involved in the planning of multi-purpose world-class stadium project. Other than stadium project I am focusing on to develop few attractive sports event and developing a structure for sports development projects which also includes football.

Harmit : Many thanks for taking the time to speak to us and we look forward to your continued involvement in sport and in football.