Give Football a Chance in our Country

“Do you have a jersey with ‘Messi’ written on the back?” – A 10 year old kid asked the shopkeeper of a local street shop in Calcutta.

“Yes, but I’m afraid we don’t have one of your size”, he replied.

“Oh, what’s the smallest size that you have?” He asked with glimpse of hope in his voice. The shop keeper, using a long stick, picked up a blue color jersey from the top of his stall and handed it over to the boy.

“Ah, perfect. It’s pretty big, but who cares?” He noticed that although Messi’s name was printed on the back of the jersey, the number ‘10’ was missing. He took out a sketch pen from his bag and marked ‘10’ below ‘Messi’ and paid a bargained price for it.

‘Why did you do that?’ I asked the kid.

“I have a match in my locality”, he said, “and if we win, I’ll be rich by Rs. 400, a lot of money to buy medicine for my ailing mother.”

“Hope your mother gets well soon, but why are you wasting your money on buying this jersey?”

“Because Messi scores a lot of goals and he never lets his team down. And most importantly, he plays ‘For’ the team.” He answered back laying stress on the word ‘for’.

“Do you want to become a footballer?” I asked with a smile on my face.

“My father says that if I continue to get better, some day, I’ll play alongside Messi.” He said with immense joy and ran away.

That kid, like many other kids from the slums of Calcutta, has a dream to become a professional footballer. It’s not that the trend of becoming a footballer has hit the city recently. There are many, many unsung heroes from this city who went on to become great footballers. This city has given our country some of its finest footballers who unfortunately, like every other great footballers representing India, have failed to make a mark in the International arena.

Why is it so? Why isn’t there any Indian footballer to have played for F.C.Barcelona or Manchester United or their like?

Is it because of the lack of talent or is it because of the lack of infrastructure facilities?

Well, according to me, neither of the above stated reasons fills the void completely.

I believe that the best footballers of this country can be found in the not so affluent places (not necessarily of West Bengal). One such example is Subrata Paul. And if you’re against my view, name one (good) Indian footballer who comes from a financially rich family. ‘None’ is the answer. Remember, the Peles and the Maradonas, they all came from a financially poor background, yet, they went on to become Footballing Gods.

I’m not saying that kids who come from financially sound family cannot become good footballers. Of course, they can. But to make that possible, the government and the AIFF will have to encourage the sport at a higher level. Unfortunately, that can’t just happen overnight.

I too wanted to become a footballer, but after my schooling, I didn’t get any good opportunity. Unfortunately, I had to choose between football and studies. Had I gone with football, the chances of success would be minimal and to be frank, I wouldn’t have made it big. It’s not just me, there are thousands of people from this part of the world who had to and have to make a choice between football and studies.

But still, there are many people who have a similar hurdle of choosing between cricket and studies. Yet, many of them opt for cricket. Why is it so? The reason is simple. Unlike footballers, there’s scope for cricketers in this country. Chances are that they will make money, good money. So basically, for budding cricketers, the fear of being unsuccessful is brought down by the chances of being successful in their sport. Plus, there’s money in cricket. Had money not been a factor, I can assure you that more than 60% of the kids, from this part of the world, who want to become sportsmen, would come up saying that they want to take up Football as their profession.

It’s high time for us to look beyond cricket when it comes to sports. We need to be more versatile. We need to believe.

Yes, of late, various International clubs have taken initiative by providing kids with opportunities in training abroad. One recent example is the Airtel Rising Star. Airtel, in collaboration with Manchester United, would select 12 kids under the age of 16 from across the country. Brilliant, isn’t it? Oh, wait! Everything has a price and so does the registration forms. We have to understand that it’s extremely difficult for a kid from a village to travel to the nearest city, where selections are to take place and further pay a pretty high amount for the registration form. Some kids aren’t even sure whether they’ll get a square meal food everyday, forget buying the registration forms and if, by chance, they arrange the required amount; they have the fear of failing during the trials? There’s no denying the fact that most of the kids who want to become footballers come from financially not-so-strong background (read very poor), and thus they can’t take part in such selections. Result, well, the Indian team (men) ranks 163 in the FIFA world rankings.

With this article, I’m not trying to criticize anyone or anything. What I’m trying to say is –

We do get the required funds from FIFA, but all we need to do is to use them wisely. We do have football grounds, but all we need to do is to provide budding footballers with proper infrastructure facilities. We do have a huge population of kids, but all we need to do is to provide them with platforms to showcase their talents. We do have the talent, but all we need to do is to form a good scouting team and set them in search of an Indian Messi.