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Looking at the current scenario of Indian Football, it can safely be said that it is currently in shambles. New problems are arising every other day and the AIFF is unable to clear their backlog of worries. There are losses to the AIFF, the ISL teams, the I-League clubs and most importantly, Indian football as a whole.
One of the main problems arising out of this situation is the number of matches which the players get to play. This issue has been addressed by the National Team coach Igor Stimac, technical director Isaac Doru and also the captain of the Indian team Sunil Chhetri. This is what Sunil Chhetri told Khel Now during the Intercontinental Cup-
Yes, I would like see a league where most of the players are playing 50 or more games. There is a way to do it and I am sure the think-tanks in our country are working on it.
Most of the top players in the world play 50 or more games in a season. The players need that many games to reach a level of excellence. This applies even for the forwards. In our scenario, names like Jobby (Justin), Manvir (Singh) or Farukh (Choudhary) need to play competitive matches no matter how well they train.
This is a serious issue which needs to be resolved at the earliest since it hurts the very reason for the sport in the country, which is good results from the National Team. A regular Indian National Team players play an average of 18 league games per season, with a few matches during the playoffs or the Super Cup. But as the captain himself said, 20 odd games are too less for a player to develop overall. Amongst this scenario, junior players like Farukh Choudhary or Manvir Singh are left with a handful of matches as they are benched most of the time.
Acknowledging this issue, AIFF President Praful Patel told Sportstar-
Their (Stimac and Chhetri) opinion is fair enough. That is an issue which can be looked into. We are reviving the Durand Cup, WIFA (Western India Football Association) is reviving Rovers (Cup) so players can have more games. I want the players to benefit. We need a solid pool for the coach to choose from, only then will the national team benefit.
But could the revival of Durand Cup and Rovers Cup actually solve this issue?
A closer look into the Durand Cup 2019 tells us that the tournament organized by the Indian Armed Forces consists of 16 teams, out of which 4 are Armed Forces teams. That leaves us with 12 teams, out of which 5 teams were from I-League, 1 from I-League and 6 from ISL. But this still leaves out 8-9 top division teams who do not get those matches. This cannot be blamed on the organizers as it is the responsibility of the AIFF to give matches to every team.
Adding to this woe, most of the ISL and I-League have sent their reserve sides to the Durand Cup. This can be labeled as hypocrisy on the part of those teams, as they decide to not send their first team for the tournament when they are given the opportunity to gain match-time. Such prestigious tournaments should not be used as an exposure tournament for the reserves and AIFF should provide ample opportunities for the B teams.
Coming to the Rovers Cup, the last edition of the tournament took place in 2000-2001 and has been lost thereafter. Praful Patel's statement about WIFA reviving Rovers Cup cannot be taken seriously as WIFA has been making claims of reviving the Cup since 2007. It has been 12 years and there is no official word from WIFA regarding this too.
The true solution to the problem of insufficient matches lies in the merger of both teams with 16 or more teams, along with the Cup competition and other tournaments together accounting for about 40 matches a season for every team and every player. The season needs to be extended to 9 months as currently the players play only for half the year and remain out of practice for the next half of the year.
AIFF urgently needs to look into these matters to allow Indian Football to prosper in the coming years. The crisis which is existing in India currently can only be solved when the Federation and players co-exist peacefully. When these problems are solved completely, then only we have a realistic chance of playing the World Cup. Until then, we can only hope that the world's most famous sport does not die in the hands of politics and its men.
