What does India need to do to participate in FIFA world-cup

            The official FIFA rankings states  that India ranks 164th in the total 209 football playing countries of the world. A half a century old question still persists as why Indian football team can't be able to participate in the world cup?  Why a country with some  125 crore people and some 40 crore youth population can't master such a game? What are the real constraint when raw talent is abundantly available in India.
       

        
         First of all we have to understand that India was under British domination for long part of its history. The elitist class of Britain preferred to play cricket in India. The reason obviously being the tropical hot climate of India than that of cold temperate climate of Europe. The middle class of India readily accepted cricket as a main game as there is not much physical movement involved in it. It was British army which brought the game in India. Thanks to Mortimer Durand who popularized football in India. Slowly during the start of 19th century, soccer started to entrench some part of country.

             When Swami Vivekananda returned from his world famous conference of Chicago and after visiting whole Europe he gave a new mantra to Indians. 


            "You can go more closer to heaven by playing an hour of football than by reading Geeta".


             The famous mantra proved a great deal of boost to India. This also gave a boost to the British Army who brought this game to India. The Indian team did participated in the world cup held in Brasil 1950 but they were not allowed as they participated bare footed. 


             The condition has off-course changed a lot since then. Thanks to the north east region of the country that they are keeping Indian hopes alive. State like Kerala, Maharashtra and Delhi are also doing fare enough to promote the sports. Some cities like  Nagpur, Kolhapur and Banglore are emerging as a central places. The game is on the verge of development.  But what country wants is not that some part of country plays it and other remain aloof. We want every corner of the country to play the game.



Football in India

             For country to participate in FIFA's world-cup we need some serious planned efforts. First step would be to decentralize the control over every sports including football. An initiative was taken by Ajay Maken then sports minister of India. We need to continue decentralization of the sports. This can be done by establishing local bodies and providing them with necessary powers. Every school should play football and it is not that tough job to make them play. This can be done by organizing two competitions a year. 

            Football can't  survive if world class grounds are not provided for the game. Today even the metros do not have world class ground. At least we have to provide 3 grounds per state. Grounds act as a central place so that football growth can be easily trickled down in the surrounding region. If ground is established that too in the main place of the city then players, coaches and game automatically grows. A football city conurbation can be established so that in between two cities, football growth can trickled down. For setting up of the grounds, a public private partnership project would be viable as this helps in speeding up sanction process for the grounds.

           The next step would be to make our decent players as the national heroes. For making them national heroes we need to organize all India level commercial league. India has already started process by starting I-league. However, a speedy commercialization of this is required. For this even taking help of Board of Cricket control in India would be a good solution. BCCI could boost Indian football as it possesses required amount of funds.


            In a country like India, talent and resources is not the problem. It is abundantly available in India. Same time we can't blame politicians for not showing the required will. What politician wants is money and profit. Once the commercialization of the game is done then money problem will be automatically solved. Once the money gets involved the problem of lacking will  gets automatically solved.  

         
            What we really want is not the will power of the politicians but rather the will power of local sports fans and players. The craziness of fans and players automatically pressurizes politicians to grow the game. What we need to have is that a six or seven year old guy should be able to recognize and idolize some local hero. That 'will' and loyalty towards player and his home team do make youngster to follow the sports. 

           An youngster should be able to play the game in the school. The school should be able to promote the guy to the local club and the club should be able to promote the guy in the national team. The national team must promote the game internationally. When 11 such brave soles will be able to come from every corner of the country, then the world cup dream would not be a distant hope.




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