10 things that annoy football fans in India

"Football is for leisure.”Who said that? And has he/she logged on to the internet or switched on the TV to get a whiff how the whole thing works? Football is anything but for leisure. Football is far bigger than any hobby; it's about choosing your side and seeing to it that you stand by that side unless they may perform poorly enough that you may find it embarrassing to be associated to them. Giving explicable reasons for your loyalty and always being on the prowl to bash anyone who says anything against 'your' team while name calling your opponents.Ok. This was a bit bigoted exaggeration but isn't that what counts for in a fan today? Prejudiced and drunk in the colours of your beloved club team.True, there are umpteen issues with football fandom and the fans themselves but here we will focus on Indian issues. The Indian problems are a bit more specific. Being an Indian football fan holds its own challenges and issues. While the number of football fans has grown rapidly and exponentially the gamut of things that are thorn in their sides has too.Let's take a look at things that annoy football fans in India. Things that relate to how they are perceived and how they perceive things:

#10 State of Indian football

Watching all the European football and seeing various Asian players peppered throughout various leagues of Europe does make one question the probability of seeing an Indian name playing amongst the best. While we all know the problems we, as a football nation, face and how much of it is rooted to the system.

The system, AIFF and the general stagnation of the sports at the grass root level are some of the issues that have long driven Indian football enthusiasts up the wall. No doubt that the game has a great following amongst youth, but the deterrents are too many for the enthusiast to be brave enough and make a mark in the game.

While aspiring to be the next Messi is not wrong in any manner, but to have a mainstream Indian footballer who can be a role model rather than the European stars of the modern day for the next generation would surely result in far more success stories. With a relatable idol, perhaps youth can look at the sport in a better light than currently and dream to make it big in the sports.

#9 Too much importance to Cricket

We all know how big cricket is in India. The inroads cricket has made through the years along with the nation's competitiveness and success are no doubt reasons behind this huge following that the sport has attained. While there is no doubt, cricket has reached where it is due to massive efforts, you cannot but feel that due to its success other sports have taken a hit.

Cricket stands for not just a sport or a hobby, but a stairway to prosperity as well. It has reached a level that it is deemed as a viable career option. While the imbalance between cricket and rest of the sports has slowly become so large that it requires tremendous efforts from other sports to have any hope of procuring talents and secure some sort of parity.

While the cricket fans are large in number their attitude to any other sport is that of disdain. They talk about the sports, the history, and India’s position. “You should watch cricket, what do you get watching the whole 90 minutes and at the end there is no winner.” “You get one or two goals per game how can you bear so much of nonsense for one or two goals at least in cricket we have wickets boundaries every now and then.”

These are some of the common discourse that cricket fans have to give in order to convert the “senseless” football fans into following the gentlemen’s game.

#8 Time difference

A good 4-and-a-half (5 and a half in winters) hours separate Indian and European standard time. While waking up late in the night to get your fill of the premium European football action becomes second nature gradually, but it surely does mess up your daily schedule. Majority of us helpless souls are left ruing our late night footballing binge as the workplace/school or college affairs are left in disarray.

No doubt waking up late in the night and watching your team win has its own charm with all the muted and hushed celebrations to the point that you may like to point at them to showcase your fanaticism for the game, but once the euphoria ends and real life kicks it is both annoying and painful getting by the day like a zombie. Dark circles, erratic sleep, and all the lectures that you may get from your elders if you screw up in your studies leading to a further ban on your nightly football bingeing. We have all gone through the full circle and they say following football is easy.

#7 Lack of live broadcast

Alright, story time. As a child it was a great fun to watch WWE (or WWF as it was known then) and when there was cancellation/delay in the broadcast, all we could do was perhaps pray to the TV gods to help us out. The broadcasters haven't changed though have redirected their wrath towards the beautiful game.

With burgeoning sports channels in modern day and age, we thought it would be much smoother enjoying all the games live but not to be. While no doubt number of sports channel has increased, but not for the betterment of football but for cricket action, in particular, that are seen as mainstream or important to be given good coverage. The result is that we see three channels dedicated to showing a single live event of the magnanimity of India versus Bangladesh cricket match while football mostly has the fortune of witnessing twitter petitions or twititions as they are popularly known, filed to see which match comes out as the favored one to be broadcasted, while rest of the fans have to curse and take refuge in internet live streams making it virtually impossible to follow one’s favorite football team.

#6 Fair weathered fans

These are the fans who give rest of us football fanatics a bad name. The loudmouth variety of infidel fans that have no idea about what is going on, but will go on at length on social media ranting about what is right and wrong with the game. Nothing winds up the true supporters than to hear people talk eloquently about the sport without even knowing what they are talking. Not only are we subjected to various digs due to these fans, but also the perception about the whole football fanbase gets tainted due their fanaticism.

We get it that all of us go through a fanboy/fangirl phase where we blindly adopt whatever is in vogue but there are few who transcend the boundaries and go all hammer and tong about their love of the game. The fair weathered fans that prop up whenever a major football event is on the horizon are ones that all of us detest with a similar might.

The growing purchasing power and capitalism has seen every second Pseudo supporter donning the “official” Jersey of his/her favourite* team (which are, in this case, topical and obviously to change the next time a major event takes place).

#5 Pun-y Indian commentary

First of all, let me just clarify that listening to Hindi commentary is not something that I look down upon, but the quality of Hindi commentary currently is something shambolic. It is not a case of being too cool for school when preferring English commentary over its Hindi counterpart.

While there are good Hindi commentators; case in point Novy Kapadia – who packs a punch no matter whether he is speaking in English or Hindi, for the rest nothing much good can be said. And true that English commentary can also be favored and lacking the neutrality and insight that it demands, but the abject failure of Hindi commentary is something on a different level.

Hindi is the most widely spoken language in the country and it was a good strategy by the broadcasters to initiate the language in the game so as to attract more viewers towards it. But devoid of any insight, mostly converting and stating the financial value of players and clubs in Indian rupees, talking in platitudes and puns while talking about the live action are some of the issues that are ridiculed all over the internet by the fan.

#4 Stereotypes

Nothing yanks my chain more than to see people calling world cup football as FIFA. I mean FIFA is the governing body, not the game (snide comment – though FIFA has been growing more than the game lately). FIFA is also a game series that has helped immensely in the growth of the sport, but FIFA is not the World Cup. To call football world cup as FIFA is to call cricket world cup as ICC. (P.S. Are you going to follow the ICC this Feb onwards? Sounds odd right?)

This is, I guess, just one of the many stereotypes that are present in our country, which we as fans have to hear on a daily basis. Another being Brazil is the best team on the planet regardless of their current form or players because that is what we have read in the papers about football. Gross generalization and stereotypes have always been in there, more so in our country.

Another of the much-vaunted stereotypes is the misconception that all girls watch football for the fact that it has cute dudes. While there may be certain truth in it but not every female follower of the sport is in it for the handsome hunks rather it is something that comes incidentally for them and yes I know an equal amount of male fans who do not know about offside as female fans, so yes, deal with it.

#3 Aggressive patriotism

With the growing nationalistic fervor around the nation, the chants of make in India et al, you will no doubt find someone with a jingoistic point of view questioning your insolence for picking up a sport that has no Indian connect. The arguments put forward are somewhat stereotypical ranging from “do you even know five Indian players while you go on supporting these Messis and Ronaldos?” to “you know India's rank in football before cheering for teams in the English Premier League?”

Is it something shameful if we watch the best of the crop play the game we all like rather than just wait till the time India is the best football country? Granted knowledge about how the sport is faring in India is good to have, but the evangelistic view that first read thoroughly about India’s contribution and achievement in football before even trying to see who and how the best teams play is something that is primitive and stupid.

Does that mean we need to eat all the innumerable Indian food preparation to even try our hand at foreign cuisine? Such bigoted and crooked views are what stunt the growth of sports other than cricket in our nation.

#2 Using Bollywood

Bollywood sells. Every Indian knows that, right? But not to someone who seeks to see some footballers, Indian footballers perhaps instead of a sultry Bollywood actress, lifting the Champions League trophy. For them it is a reminder that celeb power trumps everything, even the beautiful game.

While it is the tried and trusted formula of using celebs to promote the game in India as was even showcased in the recently concluded ISL, but to have these so-called endorsers/promoters hogging the limelight instead of the footballers is to feed to the celeb crazy media out there. There is a fine line between promoting the game for the game’s sake, which is finely understood by all of us, and when you are just blabbering stuff to appease your fan base using this as a nice platform for yourself. Nothing furthers a fan away from the sport than to see such blatant display of star power.

As an Indian football fan nothing is more cringier than to see detailed interviews of celebrities professing their love for the game and see some godforsaken actor, roped in as the face of World Cup analyst panel talking like a teenager full of himself while analyzing World Cup games and intermittently reminiscing about that time when he watched a football game at his home with the host of the broadcast, who himself is more habitual of the khattaks and thokko taali of the IPL world to get a grip of this coverage.

#1 Tag of Plastic Fans

The labyrinthine internet in all its glory has helped us in more ways than we can remember. One such help has been its ability to link people with common interests regardless of the distance involved. While internet sees no discrimination in the distance, people on the internet do. Plastic fans – A common internet slang that alludes to one being a fake/superficial fan. Yes, netizens can be cruel enough to pick on people due to the lack of locational vicinity to the clubs and leagues that one likes to follow.

While the elitist might say that you need to be a Mancunian to understand how big a Manchester derby is, how important the bragging rights may be. But is it necessary to belong to a place to love it vis-à-vis to be from a region to love a club. In a modern world where boundaries do not matter is it really of consequence to be totally dripped in your clubs colors?

With the game becoming global, does it really hold any water to ridicule Indian or America fans of the sport? While the arguments may go back and forth the reality is that fans from the subcontinent and the U.S. are seen as second grade/ superficial/plastic while on the contrary to follow a team just on basis of how they play and their technique and have no common point than the love of the game for your choice rather than be perpetuated into a club because you belong to a specific area is far more tougher and commendable.