Pepsi T20 and Indian Football - The Unspoken Bit

Rewind a few months and the Indian television witnessed Pepsi’s commercials and the words “Change The Game” screaming in the viewers’ faces. A lot of talks and publicity regarding these commercials imparted mixed reactions. Proper football fans, quite obviously, were not too impressed mainly due to the lack of insight describing Frank Lampard‘s attributes and a host of other apparent reasons.

Pepsi announced the details of their new campaign which included a “T20 football tournament”, and its rules (some of them) mocked the beautiful game for the purists like myself. Goalsworth 2, 4 and 6 points and the match in a WWE-esque cage with a Roof sounded like steps in the non footballing (cricket) directions. The inclusion of cricket stars like Mahendra Singh Dhoni also angered a lot of Indian Football fans since these are potential limelight magnets in an event which was seemingly contingent to football at first!

The final event (Thyagraj Stadium-New Delhi), like any other celebrity studded event, was delayed and mismanaged to a certain extent. It all started with a press conference where the former Chelsea striker was presented to the huge media contingent (more than half of whom never show up for Indian Football) and a few rehearsed and honest words were spoken by Didier himself about Chelsea and his experience and knowledge about India. A seemingly jet-lagged and smiling Champions league winner was sitting right in front of myself and I was still wondering about the impact of this campaign on Indian football.

A couple of hours later, the highlight of the day for an Indian football fan came to life- the moment(s) when the Baichung chant overpowered and completely undermined Bhajji’s presence when both of them were together on the stage in the arena. The Indian football fans present there, however smaller in number, were louder than the rest!

There was a lot of mainstream entertainment during the gaps of six games of 15 minutes each in an event which lasted for more than 5-6 hours. Pepsi added 3 professional freestyle footballers to put up a show and perform amazing tricks which received a lot of praise from the crowd. After some time it was evident that a major section of the crowd here in New Delhi did not comprise of proper football fans and most of the spectators who were present there just came to have a look at their gods in the form of Dhoni, Ranbir Kapoor and Harbhajan Singh.

These were the same fans who were fascinated and moved by the football they grasped (however little) in the tournament and from the freestylers. I still don’t know if Pepsi really had any other intention than profit-making from this event but it did no harm to football in India. In fact, hosting the finals in a city where there is a fast, growing-like-a-beast interest in the sport, was key. Bringing in cricket stars and Ranbir Kapoor created a lot of publicity in the mainstream (including non-football) media and public. This was crucial in the sense that it got a lot of cricket and Bollywood fans to stand and take notice of football skills of the freestylers and some quality teams involved in the competition like SPG of Delhi (winners).

The modified format made the game look more familiar and exciting to the fans who needed to be drawn away from the cordons of cricket. A lot of young faces in the crowd were fascinated, and the freestylers got a sizeable amount of autograph requests from the kids. This was a proper example of popularizing the sport among the people who have no knowledge of the same.

It is unjust to criticize Pepsi for ignoring pure football in this event/campaign because they are a corporation and they will seek assured ways to make profits. They run a business and they are not responsible for the growth of sports in our country, forget about investing in the infrastructure. Moreover, they should be praised because a lot of Chelsea fans realized their dream of meeting the Drog and a lot of kids who were nowhere close to football, went back home with a new fascination. The inter-relatedness with cricket spoke to the non footballing brain. Pepsi did not claim that this would be the turning point of football in India, so fair play to them. They did not change the game for sure but they did do something good to it, along with some free publicity for themselves.