A COUPLE of days back, I was speaking to a colleague and discussing how soccer is a metaphor for nationalism in most under developed and developing countries, barring India of course. Cricket has permeated our sub consciousness to such a great extent that it has a garrote like grip on our mind space. Look around and you will find that the most impoverished nations in Africa and South America have taken to football like ducks to water. From the favelas in Rio De Janerio to the shanty towns in Soweto, South Africa, from Marseille in France to Turkey, from Russia to Japan and from Australia to now even the US, soccer is the biggest sport in the world.
In fact, many believe that the Olympics every leap year are not the greatest show on earth, but the Fifa World Cup is. So, why does cricket grab all the headlines, money and glamour in India while it is diametrically different in the rest of the world? Isn’t it ironical that hockey is our national sport, football is extremely popular in some states like Left ruled Kerala and West Bengal, as also Goa and the North East, but cricket remains all pervasive.
The media has obviously played the role of a catalyst. Media loves to build heroes, write hyperbole, but it does so for successful sport and sportspersons. Unfortunately it has no time for losers and in both hockey and football, India’s losing streak has been staggering. The tide doesn’t seem to turn.
Hockey’s mismanagement is now a part of folklore.
The films Goal and Goal 2 capture the very essence of what soccer means to young Latin Americans. It shows the main protagonist Mexican Santiago Munez (Kuno Becker) make his tryst with fame and adulation. His trials and tribulations and his journey to stardom. As part of the tetralogy, Goal 3 is currently being shot and will show Munez play in the Fifa World Cup. Chake De did something similar for Indian hockey. Now Sikander, a Sudhir Mishra film has a young football crazy boy living his life under the shadow of terrorism in Kashmir.
Hockey, unfortunately is a game that has provided dwindling returns in India over the past 30 odd years, and football sadly has simply slid off the world map. Yet, at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, India finished fourth. In the third place play off, we were vanquished 3-0 by Bulgaria. Names like Neville D”Souza, Peter Thangraj and PK Banerjee were part of this squad. In football, India last reached the Asian Games quarter finals at the Delhi Asiad in 1982. Both football and hockey are in complete disarray in India while cricket continues to make rapid strides, both on and off the field. Success begets success and that has been contemporary Indian cricket’s story.
I lived in Kolkata, then Job Charnock’s Calcutta from 1979 to 1985 and since I had played a little football in school in Delhi, I was quite passionate about the game. The derbies between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal with Mohommedan Sporting being thrown into the mix were something that one waited for with great expectation. The local league had two talismanic Iranians – Majid Bakshar and Jamshed Nassiri. They changed the equation, providing a jagged edge to the matches. Crowds thronged the maidans to watch ‘khelar.’ Under the watchful eye of Goshto Pal’s statue, soccer mad Bengalis wore their club colours on their hearts and sleeves. All this carried on till the football World Cup in Spain in 1982. Doordarshan showed the matches live and it altered the very face of Calcutta football. It was as if the fizz had been taken out of a soft drink bottle. It was flat thereafter. Soccer mad Calcutta denizens stayed up and watched real football, suddenly realizing that they had been watching the phoney stuff back home.
After watching the genuine McCoy, the fan gave up on his local heroes. The yawning gap between what was being dished out on the telly and what he had got accustomed to on the maidan was like a shrill wake up call. Soccer was never the same after that in Kolkata. On Monday morning when I read the Forbes list of the world’s most valuable soccer clubs, this reality hit me square in my face. Quality of football is the greatest differentiator. Somehow, both in hockey and football, India has not kept pace with developments in the game, its all round skill sets, fitness levels and what have you. And it is not that media ignores hockey and football totally. Rightly when India does well in either sport, media – print and telly – plays it up. A case in point is India’s victory in Azlan Shah hockey on Sunday.
But let me cut to the chase now. Forbes says that the top 25 franchises are worth on an average $597 million, which is 8 per cent more than last year. Man U with Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo is valued at a mind boggling $ 1.87 billion followed by Real Madrid at $ 1.35 billion. Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Liverpool are all valued at over a billion dollars each. Lucrative multi year broadcast and sponsorship deals coupled with merchandising make these clubs the cynosure of the sporting world. Compare this with our very own fledgling Indian Premier League. In next to no time, a billion dollar franchise has been created out of nothing.
Telecast rights being sold for $1.63 billion over nine years, title and on ground sponsorship deals being inked in the middle of a global meltdown. Teams getting sponsors to sign up even though the tournament was plagued with problems and has now been shifted out of India. Yes, cricket continues to thrive. If our hockey and soccer stars land the kayo punches on the global stage, I am sure sponsors will queue up. Both hockey and soccer evoke hysteria in many countries. Soccer in the main is an aspirational vehicle for youth in South America to gain a better life. Just as cricket is in India. Former Indian bastman and dear friend Sanjay Manjrekar once explained the phenomenon of callow Mahrashtrian boys from Shivaji Park and Dadar Union colonies emulating their role models to become international cricketers. He said, “It is in many ways seeking abbreviation to a better life. All of us wanted to emulate Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Sandeep Patil who in turn had wanted to follow in the footsteps of Vijay Manjrekar, Ajit Wadekar, Subhash Gupte and the like. As boys from lower middle class backgrounds, we were looking for izzat, shaurat and maybe a little paisa.”
That is at the core of Indian cricket’s success story. Walking up the aspirational ladder. But hockey and soccer in India have to be supported by corporates and this has happened. What one needs is a dramatic result. Like say India winning the cricket World Cup in 1983, something to galvanise the game and re-connect it to the masses. Unfortunately we don’t get a look into the soccer World Cup and failed to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in hockey.
The real inflection point for Argentina came at the World Cup against the backdrop of a repressive junta. It was an outlet for the nation’s youth and became a metaphor for neo nationalism. Think of the English Premier League, it might be the world’s most durable franchise, but England cannot win the football World Cup. Forget World Cup, it finds it difficult to win the Euro Cup. EPL top dog Chelsea at one point in time had 11 foreigners on the field during a game. So, the franchise is bigger than local content. India needs to first build local content and then build franchises in hockey and football. It has to bring spectators, viewers, sponsors, advertisers back to the games. A confluence of this kind with power packed results is the future. Otherwise we will wallow in the dark, dank abyss of mediocrity.
