Any value for Indian football in ex-stars visiting the country?

A friend yesterday asked me an interesting question, if there is any value for Indian football in ex-football stars visiting the country? Surely a question which can be asked, but honestly one has to doubt if there is any real value for Indian football. The last few weeks has seen Argentine legend Diego Maradona visit Kerala, Brazilian 1994 FIFA World Cup winning captain Carlos Dunga visit Kolkata and only this week ex-Portugal captain Luis Figo was in Goa.

Surely this has created some hype about the beautiful game in those places, all three players will have earned a handsome amount of money in visiting India and all three said some wise words on what Indian football needs to do to develop itself.

But in the end once they are gone, all is forgotten and if it becomes in India like it is usual in other parts of the world, then the next set of ex-football stars are already waiting to visit the country. All this is part of business and promotion of some sort, but it has little to do with football per se, though the organisers in Kolkata and Goa will want to communicate it differently.

Such visits are nice, ideally a lot of people get to see these former greats and football is in the media.