Attempting to delineate Indian team sport from politics, disputes, legal action and ego clashes is a bit like eating aloo parantha without butter, chutney or raita. Us – consumers of sport, are bored to death reading the sad stories surrounding cricket, hockey, football, volleyball, basketball etc. If it is not fighting for the office of president of the association, then it is last minute scheduling of practice or missed flights for an international tour due to lack of visa procurement. Why are association sports so badly run? And in the case of the two larger sports – hockey and football – is it because of two veterans, in P D Munshi and K P S Gill, regarding the sports they looked after, as their fiefdom’s?

P D Munshi was the president of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) for 21 years and K P S Gill was the head of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for 15 years. Gill was unceremoniously ousted last year and an ad-hoc committe was formed which is still finding its feet and Munshi, frail and ill, has been replaced by Praful Patel. During the tenure of these two stalwarts of Indian sport (seems strange, considering neither played for their country) football remains a joke and hockey has been reduced to a joke. Wasn’t Mr Gill busy enough being a cop and wasn’t Mr Munshi busy in active politics? For that matter, wasn’t Sharad Pawar really busy being agriculture minister that he also had to be president of the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI)? In this backdrop of power starved public figures, we now have a new breed to deal with – Praful Patel. Patel promises to be an anomaly, a breath of fresh air. In the short period that he has been stand-in president, he has already managed to organize Rs. 35 crores for the AIFF.

Football cannot be referred to as the world’s game in India. Stars around the world, in the past and the present, have come from small towns and villages, where the game acted as an adhesive and recreation in the poorer sections of the towns. Commercial interest of football in India is in the metros and big cities. We are used to seeing the best leagues beamed live into our lives. We run to buy their official merchandise to exhibit loyalty. We clamour for tickets (or passes, if you live in Delhi) when an exhibition match happens. The preppie who wants to fit in with their friends or cousins who live abroad. So, interest in football in India will grow from the urban to the rural. But, obviously, this is Patel’s biggest challenge but also his biggest weapon – grassroots development. Basically, to put a complete framework in place. I’ll say he’s got his work cut out – if we haven’t been able to produce a tennis Grand Slam singles winner, or a golf major winner, will we be able to produce a team of footballers to take us into a football World Cup? He is our best chance to.

The relationship between politics and sport has, and continues to be, symbiotic.  But what is important is that it is not obligate but facultative and this is where Patel seems to be different than the rest. His style, charisma, success as a businessman but most of all, his age. Will he be the messiah for Indian football, not just in isolation but also in diluting the power that cricket brings and to make a mark in India finally becoming a multi-sport consuming country?

Written by Kartikeya Rao

Image: REUTERS/ Adnan Abidi

        

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