Bharat FC: The lion that wandered straight to the zoo

Bharat FC Logo (image taken from Bharat FC’s Facebook account)

As Indian football was achieving an all-time high with the success of Indian Super League (ISL), the I-League announced the name of the 11th addition to the league for the 2015 season. The team, which was bought by the Kalyani Group, will feature in India’s top league as Bharat Football Club.

With all the attention on the ISL, this announcement has raised more questions while all we have is the answer to the question, “What would the name of the team be?”

Yes, the owners had to announce their team name sooner rather than later and every passing day was a delay in their attempt to kick off their pre-season promotional activities. It was announced in August that the bid from Kalyani Group was officially accepted. What exactly took them around three months to come up with a name and logo is quite puzzling.

But the problem does not solely lie with the delay of the announcement. There are actually a lot of issues that question the very existence of Bharat FC, which have been looked at here.

Location of the stadium

The first issue is whether Pune deserves another football club. The average attendance for Pune FC’s home matches last season was an astonishing figure of 2586 fans. The Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex boasts a capacity of 22,000, which means that a little over 10% of the stadium was occupied for an I-League game. As an owner of a group with an annual turnover exceeding USD 2.5 billion, the average attendance is a very worrying statistic.

The most obvious reason why the attendance is so low is the fact that the stadium is situated on the outskirts of the city. If people are not willing to travel the distance to watch a team that finished 2nd in the 2012-13 season, why will they travel to see a new team with no history? One can’t help but think that a city with a stadium within the city would have been a better choice.

Promises of football development

Speaking of history, the owners of the club have come out with the philosophy that the new team is ‘India’s Club’ based in Pune. Amit Kalyani, Executive Director, Kalyani Group said that the team would focus on youth development and grassroots programmes. “We are looking at bringing talent from India and abroad and adopt best practices for building a strong foundation for Bharat FC,” he said.

I am all for the development of football, but over the past 10 years, several people have come and gone after promising to develop Indian football. Yet, India is currently ranked 159th in the world. It is always easy to say such things, but it is action that really counts. And what India needs more than words, is swift and immediate action. But given the way things have progressed with the club, swift is a word that will not be used any time soon.

Triumphant before stepping onto the field?

Bharat FC’s baseline is “Together. Forever. Triumphant.” When you read it for the first time, the words will sound very familiar. Puma’s baseline during the launch of the 2014/15 Arsenal kit was “Stronger Together”. The baseline of their recent campaign was “Forever Faster”. Either the baseline suggests that Puma will be involved with the club, or that creativity is not their strongest suit. To have triumphant as the third word is also an odd choice.

If the team was in its 100th year with a trophy cabinet overflowing with silverware, then triumphant would have been an apt description. For a new club with no history, there needs to be a battle before they can triumph. Whether they will achieve success or not is a different issue, but to claim to be forever triumphant even before first match carries a subtext with arrogance written all over it.

Improper social media management

There is also another glaring issue with the announcement that suggests that it was made hastily (again, almost a 100 days have passed since the club was officially announced) and without proper preparation. In today’s day of technology, social media is the biggest asset an organisation can have. Bharat FC proudly launched their Facebook page and made a decent attempt at arriving with a bang with this post.

Post by Bharat FC.

The lion might have roared and arrived, but if the lion goes straight to the zoo, then even you would question the lion’s intelligence. After launching the club on Facebook, it is common sense to believe that people would want to know what exactly the club is about. But to everyone’s surprise, Bharat FC’s ’About Us’ page has only six words written: No information available for this page. For a professional football club to have an incomplete Facebook page should be considered suicidal in this day and age.

Incomplete Facebook page

It might just be a Facebook page, but the fact that they are not prepared to take care of the little things, severely hurts the perception of their ability to take care of the bigger things such as managing a football club. We live in a world where perception dictates the market and the first impression the club has made is a very poor one.

It is always suggested to look into the mirror after putting on a new a dress before you go outside. Unfortunately, it seems that there was either no mirror present or the club just didn’t care enough to take a look.

Bharat FC might have Bharat in the name, but they have a long way to go before they can come anywhere close to becoming India’s heartthrob. If Bharat FC is actually able to benefit Indian football, then I would be glad to have been proven wrong. But given how the club have started, would you place your money on Bharat FC becoming India’s favourite football team?