Praful Patel calls for Indian football to get commercialized

The top dog of Indian football has woken up finally. Praful Patel the AIFF president, speaking at Goal’13 event held by FICCI at New Delhi, said: “All stakeholders must be partners and must see the future in this game (football), to be able to have the willingness and enthusiasm in this rather interesting, but long journey.”

Patel called for the popularization of the beautiful game in the country and mentioned the importance of commercialization.

“We need to popularize the game of football which is probably the only game which is played by every single nation on this planet, to that end, it’s also a big challenge because you are competing with that many more countries. To do well, you have to find the best talent and nurture it, but most importantly you must have the commercialization of the sport – if you do not have that, you cannot sustain that sport.

He continued: “Every team cannot remain at the amateur level of the sport, you cannot expect professionals to get into the game and not have a future ahead of them. So, I think it (commercialization) is important and it’s happening in all sports, so why should football be any different?

“I think it’s not just about with whom we have the partnership. All other aspects to the partnership will become valuable only when we make sure that the whole pie gets bigger and not just two stake-holders, but everybody in the value chain get more and more advantage and sees more value and potential in the whole effort.”

“In fact, I am going to use my personal good offices with most of the people in the industry of business fraternity to see that each major corporate house at least adopts one major football academy, because that makes those academies stronger. They (the academies) become more self-sufficient and they will be able to deliver the next generation of football players.”

In another development, India has bid to host the 2017 U-17 World Cup, the decision on which should be out before January 2014. Patel is of the opinion that hosting the mega event shall surely help India immensely in the years to come.

“Along with youth development, we are very seriously bidding for the World Cup U-17 2017, because that gives us a clear five-year target. Unless we work with some target, I don’t think we will be able to make a beginning and that’s why we are looking at this World Cup U-17 as a major turning point for Indian football.”

Should India win the big to host the U-17 World Cup in 2017, Patel fired a warning shot at the state associations to work their socks off to reap the benefits of such a prestigious event.

“We’ll go and tell Goa that you don’t make a stadium, you will not have World Cup U-17 venue. Period. So I’m sure that will wake up everybody. Same will happen for Kolkata or any other place. We will tell all the states that if you have a stadium, fine. Otherwise I’m sure we will find somebody else. This is a way, I think, we have to focus and keep a target in front of us,” he said.