MUMBAI: Bundesliga heavyweights Borussia Dortmund have set their sights on India, seeing tremendous potential in the country besides South-East Asian markets such as China, Mongolia and Japan, Press Trust of India reports.
Dortmund’s chief marketing officer, Carsten Cramer visited Bengaluru amongst a few cities recently and the club’s officials held talks with a few Indian clubs such as Bengaluru FC. However, Cramer did not guarantee an alliance or participation the ISL in the near future but considers India to be the future of the club’s global presence.
“When the right strategy is in place and most of the boxes in our checklist are ticked, we can address this.
“India is a market that we have been observing and monitoring in the last few years and the growth of football is very much prevalent. After establishing our Asia presence in 2014 and thereafter China in 2016, India seems the obvious destination,” Cramer told PTI.
He revealed that their strategy towards India will be much different than those that they have deployed in China and Japan.
“We have made our presence in many Asian markets – South East Asia, Japan, China, and Mongolia and all these cities are unique in its own way. We are not copy pasting our plans and business models from these markets into India.
“It will be given its own merits and we came to learn, study and understand the culture, industry from the different stakeholders and at the same time take back some impressions.
“We will work out a strategy for the Indian market. It will be a bottom up approach hence it should begin in this fashion.”, Cramer added.
Dortmund’s visit seems to have come at the ideal time as it has been a few months since the successful FIFA Under-17 World Cup was played in the country and the ISL’s stocks are rising with the presence of new teams.
Earlier in April, the club had reportedly met the All India Football Federation (AIFF) general secretary Kushal Das in Dusseldorf. In the same month, Cramer had visited Mumbai and was quoted as saying to Goal.com: “Rushing to the country, playing a friendly with the professionals and just dazzling the fans, that’s not the Dortmund way,” he said. “It’s also important for us to fulfil promises to the people on a long-term perspective.”
“We are looking for a youth-centric approach in India and the more information we have regarding the market, the better it will be.”
“Our popularity may be lower but we have to do something to increase it. I’m trying to sell real and tangible emotions. We have a humble and authentic approach that Asian people like. We want to make stories, not money. We want to reach the people.”
“We don’t look for big clubs. We look for Dortmund-like niches which have people who value our approach. We are not trying to overtake anyone but we are trying to raise our own story.”
In May 2017, Dortmund had joined hands with Tata Trust and U Dream Football. The deal involved the most talented Indian kids participating in a training program in the German city while the club was likely to play a couple of friendly matches in the country in mid-2019.
