FIFA U17 World Cup: Sponsor's promo event disrupts India's training schedule just 6 days before 1st match

What's the story?

The India U-17 national team has been training in Gurugram for the past three days in preparation for the impending FIFA U-17 World Cup, but the players had to face a long period of wait ahead of their session today for sponsor commitments.

India U17 team's schedule gone for a toss. Sponsors make them wait 2 hours& event hasn't started yet. Doesn't look it'll start any time soon

— Mihir Vasavda (@mihirsv) September 30, 2017

Hero MotoCorp, one of the national sponsors of the FIFA U-17 World Cup, had an event planned with members of the Indian U-17 team but that took ages to start, leading to some compromises over the team's training schedule.

In case you didn't know...

The FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 starts in six days and India will kick off the mega event with a clash against the USA at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Luis Norton de Matos' Colts have undergone rigorous practice for what will be India's first-ever appearance at a FIFA event.

The heart of the matter

The Indian U-17 team start their practice session at Gurugram's Conscient Football Academy from 4 pm in the afternoon to 6 pm. However, due to their commitments today, it is believed that they had to face a few problems regarding their training schedule.

And the u-17 boys are supposed to take test from 1-3:15 and then leave for practice but sponsor commitment is obviously much more imp https://t.co/e0JKmsUur2

— Karishma Singh (@karishmasingh22) September 30, 2017

The latest turn of events has seen a few people question the motive behind the move since the World Cup is less than a week away and India haven't had the best of preparations if you consider the other teams at the U-17 World Cup.

Sponsors for sports events are vital. But they have to be professional. Should not take our young football stars for granted. This is the WC

— Nihal Koshie (@nkoshie) September 30, 2017

@praful_patel this is d state of sports other than cricket. Pls address issue ASAP.

— Nikhil Limaye (@NikLim01) September 30, 2017

Had this been cricket, Virat Kholi would have made sponsors wait 2 hours

— Abarron Singh (@abydksab) September 30, 2017

How disrespectful.

— Nayantara Pani (@nayantarapani) September 30, 2017

What's next?

India will train in Gurugram until 2nd October before they kick into competitive action next Saturday. The Colts will face Colombia and Ghana in their next two group games and all three group stage games for the Colts will be staged in Delhi.

Author's take

While the sponsors have every right to get involved with the national team, their timing today caused some inconvenience for the team. Football fans on social media were right to question the timing of the event, but having invested in the World Cup, Hero MotoCorp's intervention was expected. It, however, remains to be seen how adversely it affects the Indian team.