Is India ready for the professional league and the big demands which go alongside it? Is it old wine in new bottle? Is the professional league the only answer to the ills affecting Indian football? These were some of the questions thrown up on the eve of the remodelled Indian Professional League, the I-League, which kicked off on November 24 last year.

Eleven years back, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) had launched its much hyped up National Football League, which was to take Indian football to a higher level and match the Asian powers and help it regain its lost glory in the game.

Yet the promised lift of standards was only a myth and far from reality. India dropped from below 100 to 165 in the world football rankings and it was only at the fag end of the year that they climbed to 143, where they still stand.

“The fans have disappeared from the stadiums, refereeing standards have slipped, infrastructure has remained static and the quality of football has further deteriorated.”


The AIFF launched its 10-team Professional League in November 2007 but the question remains: Is the Indian Professional League the only answer to the ills affecting the game, and the only platform to raise the falling standards of Indian football?

Certainly not. And two voices which stand out are the FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Peter Vaz, president of Sporting Clube de Goa, one of the professional league clubs.

Blatter, on his visit to India, has emphasised the grass-roots football development programme – “I think in India the focus is too much on professional league,” he said. “Football’s development programme must be like a pyramid, from the bottom to the top, there must be more effort to develop the sport. You should not just focus on professionalism; most important is to develop the basics to even the technicians, coaches and institutions.”

Vaz has been critical of the professional league, describing it as “old wine in new bottle”. He wonders if it can solve Indian’s perennial problems and blames the AIFF for creating the mess in Indian football.

He said: “Eleven years back the AIFF, in a similar hurried manner, started the National Football League. It was meant to improve the standard of the game in the country, but in sharp contrast what we have achieved is from below 100 our ranking has gone down to 165. The fans have disappeared from the stadiums, refereeing standards have slipped, infrastructure has remained static and the quality of football has further deteriorated.

“Who is responsible for all this mess? Of course, it is the people at the helm of affairs.”

Vaz raised doubts about the readiness of the federation for the professional league, ranging from organisational lapses, security concerns in the troubled north-east region, refereeing standards, marketing of the game, sharing of TV rights and lack of spectators.

Vaz, who is in the construction business in the picturesque, palm-lined, football-crazy state of Goa, laments that football associations through the country have not moved with the times  – “Not only the AIFF, most state football associations in the country are being ruled by the same set of people for decades now, as if it is their ancestral property,” he added. “I hope that in future that former footballers are called up to take up administrative duties at AIFF, like Michel Platini in Europe.”

Asian Football Confederation chief Mohammed bin Hammam of Qatar, who was in India, has also been critical of the AIFF headed by federal minister Priyaranjan Das Munshi. “With the existing structure, don’t think of progress even in the next 100 years,” he has been quoted as saying.

India was the first Asian nation to make the Olympic semi-finals, at Melbourne in 1956, and they won the Asian Games gold medal twice, in 1951 and 1962. In India, it is the clubs who are running the game out of love and passion. We need to change things fast before Indian football dies.