Progression still needed in Football

As a kid, I used to aimlessly and endlessly play football in my narrow back garden aspiring to one day to be playing alongside my heroes and make history – that is, to become the first ever British Asian to become a professional footballer. Sadly, I wasn’t good enough ever to accomplish that but besides one exception, why has wider participation in the game from Asian communities not increased?

Our country is the birthplace of football and its spiritual home, yet as the Football Association recently celebrated its 150^th birthday, there is no significant participator from the Asian community to really shine as a beacon of inspiration for the next generation.

There have been a few notable exceptions, such as Pakistan international Zesh Rehman, now playing for Hong Kong side Kitchee FC, who made his debut for Fulham in 2004 and has played in all divisions of the English game. As part of my University assignment focusing on Asians in football, Rehman spoke of how his family had backed him in every decision taken regarding his career and to have the right balance of personal and professional duties. He also gave back to his community in 2010 in the form of using his foundation to encourage Asian participants. Michael Chopra represented Newcastle and Sunderland and was nominated at the British Asian Sports Awards in 2011 but due to off-field issues has failed to capitalise on his talent to propel himself to respectable acclaim.

Many reasons are brought forward as to why Asians don’t play or don’t get selected for football sides – their parents want them to become doctors, lawyers or work in a respected profession; they don’t have a healthier enough lifestyle; Asian players are too weak physically compared to the rest.

Are these reasons just convenient for the football administrators to hide behind as a failure of their lack of effort in tackling and broadening engagement in the sport?

Some of the above excuses can be debunked but it’s important to understand the mentality of the immigrants from South Asia who came to this country in the 70s to take advantages of work opportunities in certain booming industries.

The idea was always to work, earn money, send that money back to their family and then eventually, one day, to return. Immediately, their focus was more financial. So fully integrating into society, i.e. enjoying a night out, watching sports and even encouraging their children to join in them wasn’t an over-riding priority.

Luckily, that didn’t stop their children from playing, watching sports that they liked. It was simple enough: just gather your siblings, few local friends, get the tools and a decent enough park to play in. The regret is, that had these kids had some encouragement from their parents, that they might have dreamed to go further than just a quick battle with familiar people.

The changes in society have made parents realise that they can’t push their kids into doing what they want them to do. This could be related to other issues besides professions such as marriage, educational choices and general life decisions. The success of Asian competitors in other sports, such as Amir Khan in boxing and a number of Asian cricketers, has given inspiration that success as an Asian, in sports, is achievable and chances will be given, providing there is a discernible talent there.

Keeping in track with diet is tough for any individual but more information informing people on what foods are good and what are bad, are helping consumers make the right lifestyle choices. That is being permeated into Asian households as well and it seems a flimsy excuse to say diet prevents Asian players from succeeding when every culture has a diet filled with food elements that are not good for us. Yet, it hasn’t stopped other sportsmen and women to succeed.

There is a well known method of football clubs using weekend teams to identify talent for the future. The biggest names in English football, such as Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard were both plucked out in this manner and have gone onto representing their country and winning trophies at domestic and European level. It’s difficult to say whether clubs have actively gone to areas where there are significant Asian players specifically but surely it would be wise to invest time in this to try and lure players of Asian origin into the sport.

It seems publicly espousing that a club is encouraging recruitment of Asian players seems a convenient PR exercise. Chelsea attempted to do this by offering trials for Asian players but without any tangible results, it’s hard to believe this attempt as sincere or as a PR stunt by a club that has often been criticised for a number of varying reasons.

West Ham, Leicester and Leeds have all initiated schemes to entice Asian players into the game but sadly, no results have ever been shown on the pitch.

In regards to Asian players being physically weak compared to their counterparts then it is a good job Pep Guardiola didn’t follow that method when he was constructing his Barcelona side in 2008. His Barcelona side, that went on to win fourteen trophies in four years including the Champions League twice, consisted of smaller players who may not be powerhouses physically but had a technical ability that surpassed any need for physical capability. If it was good enough for Guardiola and Barcelona then why can’t it be satisfactory for Asians? Any coach making this judgment would be extremely foolish considering the landscape of football has completely metamorphosed from power to pace, force to skill and tenaciousness with patience.

The FA celebrated its 150^th anniversary that huge fanfare and rightly so but at its next milestone, it should hope that at that point, it will be able to proudly say that they have finally maximised potential from all communities to make the game a more diverse one.