Youth Programmes necessary for development of Football in India

On a rainy Sunday evening in Calcutta last month, I got a call from former Nigerian striker Abdul Lateef Seriki. He wanted to introduce me to Moshood ‘Bola’ Abdulaziz, Mohammedan Sporting’s new coach. It was pouring heavily but still I didn’t want to let go this opportunity go and meet someone who has recently joined the famed club.

Short and well-built, the Nigerian, who had earlier coached Atlantis FC in Finland, looked calmer after his evening prayer in the flat provided by the club.

During our conversation, I realized that Bola has learnt a lot about the Calcutta clubs and Sporting, who are looking for redemption this season after they earned a qualification berth for the I-League this season.

Fans are happy and they are pouring at the club ground on the Red Road to watch their team during the training sessions. But raising a strong team and recruiting top players doesn’t guarantee trophies and Bola, at the moment, looked the best man to make the struggling century-old team understand this statement.

“Sporting is one of the top teams in the country. I’ve read and understood its historical significance from the club officials, fans and journalists,” he said.

It’s often not too easy to coach a Calcutta club. Interference from the officials and lack of understanding often leads to nowhere. In the past lot of coaches had either quit or had been asked to go. Sporting is one team which will start with a bang but would fizzle out in quick time and this has been their bane since last three decades. Though the local Calcutta League has lost its lustre, Sporting last won it in 1981. Now this piece of information is good enough to understand the club’s dwindling fortune.

After spending two hours with the new coach, there’s a ray of hope and I’m confident that the 45-year-old can turn the clock back to the golden days.

His experience both as a player and coach in Finland should help the success-starved team. But the club officials must repose the faith in him. Instead of targeting a short-term success, Sporting must focus on something which will yield better results in the future.

Like any other team, the Black Panthers never understood the importance of youth development. They don’t have a dedicated and ‘real’ youth teams. Like other clubs in the city, Sporting too ‘hire’ and then hastily raise a junior team. This sort of ‘cheating’ mentality must be dumped as it hasn’t helped Indian football.

Also, there’s a shortage of local players. The clubs’ inability to include youth programmes in their system has given rise to such a crisis. Most foreign coaches often stress on the need of having a long-term youth set-up. But under the pressure of club officials, who mostly aim at winning anything, these technically-sound coaches often give up. Either they earn their wrath for disobeying them or they resign. And that’s so pathetic.

In the last 10 years, both FIFA and AFC have made frantic efforts to educate the Indian clubs on youth programmes. Still very few clubs seemed to have understood its significance.

East Bengal and Mohun Bagan still have a better administration but Sporting falls short of that expectation. If Bola has to succeed, he needs to be supported and backed by the club. As I said, short-term success will never help Indian football. Still difficult to fathom, the club’s website is still ‘under construction’.

In terms of marketing and visibility, there’s a huge drawback. Besides, there is no gym or a swimming pool though I understand that a large part of the club tents belong to the Ministry of Defence. Still, the club could have used the inner space and the lawns outside just like what East Bengal has done.

Aren’t we projecting ourselves as unprofessional to these foreign coaches?