Foreign Clubs are here for Business, not for upliftment of Indian Football—Novy Kapadia

Football, ranked the second most popular sport of India. Getting into this sport is now a cool quotient for the youngsters. Sunil Chhetri and Robin Singh are now recognized faces of National Indian Football team. But still the sport needs a lot, a better FIFA rank, structured plan and promotion.  Sports Kreeda reporter Vaishali Khulbe got a chance to interview former football player, leading sports commentator and sports journalist Mr. Novy Kapadia to get his views on Indian football.

Sports Kreeda: India’s FIFA rank is 146 and football is ranked 2^nd most popular game of India. What improvement still football needs to get into our culture?

Novy Kapadia: Major improvement required for football in India is that it needs to spread all over the country. It is confined to few states, very popular in Goa and North east and declining popularity in Bengal. But the vast and densely populated Northern India, there football is almost non-existent. So from quantity comes quality. Until we emphasize on getting large parts of India to play, India will remain stagnant. FIFA ranks are still low because we play lesser International matches. If India will play with higher ranked teams then only it will get bonus and better ranks. So that is also another reason of India’s FIFA ranking being so low.  

  

Sports Kreeda: Foreign clubs have set up shops, restaurants in India. Do you think that India could become a potential gold mine for these clubs?

Novy Kapadia: India is a potential gold mine for business but no foreigner is going to come here to improve football .They are here to popularize their merchandise among 200 million middle class people larger than the most population of Europe. And about foreign clubs, many Indian players have this false dream that they will be able to play in the foreign clubs i.e. not going to happen. Foreign countries have strict regulation, like for instance in England unless your country’s FIFA rank is in top 75; they don’t import players as it prevents a player from England in taking part. Many people playing in the coaching schemes are under false illusions.

Sports Kreeda : There is one national team and 47 clubs in Division 1 and Division 2 . Is this club system a better option or having state teams a better option?

Novy Kapadia : All over football is done by clubs. Earlier we used to have states taking part in our national championships like Santosh Trophy, and then we started national football leagues, I-League.    But clubs in I-league are restricted from 3-4 states only, 4 from Bengal, 4 from Goa out of 14, thus we can say it is only a small part of Indian-League. As clubs are Public Sector undertakings, they do not exist in large parts of India. What you do for large parts of India who cannot support a club, where there is no financial or crowd support. AIFF themselves is uncertain whether to promote club culture fully. Clubs have to increase but we need to involve states also. We cannot focus on small set of population only.

Sports Kreeda : FIFA’s rank for India’s women team is 50 and recently it defeated the Dutch team in a practice match, so do you think that India’s women have more charisma to be the face of Indian football team? 

Novy Kapadia : Definitely …Women’s football is comparatively new ,it is not played so much in the world. Women have done well .Dutch was a junior team so too much should not be read into that victory. Women can progress but women have other social problems. The difficulties are the same; in large parts of India again Women do not play football. AIFF has also neglected women’s football a lot. Women’s football should at least have structure, a foundation .In women’s football there is no base at all and in men’s football it is shaky i.e. why our team keeps crumbling.Unfortunately Women’s team gets negligible encouragement, no sponsors, no state-government help and no job opportunities. Women footballers have to be fully congratulated with the struggle that they still manage to play the game.