Some interesting points, didn't know they played barefoot when they qualified for the world cup lol
Football in India
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Association football is one of India's most popular sports, and is said to rank second only behind cricket in popularity, although some reporting considers domestic football to be more popular [1] than domestic cricket. Football is played in almost all schools in India. Football is also said to be the top sport in the states of Goa, Kerala, Manipur,West Bengal, Mizoram and Sikkim.
In September 2006, India and Brazil signed an agreement formalise a scheme to train Indian footballers and coaches[1]
Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), in the state of West Bengal, is considered to be the home of Indian football. The city contains the two most famous Indian teams East Bengal Club and Mohun Bagan AC. Derbies between these two clubs often draw crowds around the 120,000 mark.
Recently Goan clubs have been doing very well in the I-league. Dempo FC are the defending champions.
Contents [hide]
1 Structure of the game in India
2 History
3 Women's football in India
4 Famous players
5 See also
6 References & Notes
7 External links
[edit] Structure of the game in India
The game in India is administered by the All India Football Federation (AIFF), which is affiliated to the regional Asian Football Confederation, as well as to the worldwide body FIFA. The Indian national team has entered into the regional Asian Cup competition as well as the World Cup. The Indian women's national team has also played in various competitions. Youth football is administered by the governmental Sports Authority of India.
The game is also administered at state levels by state football associations, some of which predate the AIFF. The Indian Football Association, which is responsible for the game in the state of West Bengal, used to be in de-facto charge of the game in India before they pushed for the creation of a national body in association with other state associations.
See All India Football Federation for more details
Women's football (see below) has its own separate inter-state and state competitions.
The standard of Indian football (compared globally) is poor - the national team is ranked past 100th place in the world, and is said to struggle to qualify for both the World Cup and the Asian Cup. Part of this has been put down to the lack of opportunities for proper training and development of players in the country.
[edit] History
Football in India was spread during the days of the British Empire. Many football clubs in India were created during this time, and pre-date many of the organisations and clubs, such as FIFA, which are predominant in the game today. Initially games were played between army teams, however clubs were soon set up around the country. Mohun Bagan Athletic Club was set up in what is now West Bengal in 1889. The club became famous in 1911 when it became the first Indian team to lift the IFA Shield, a tournament previously won only by British teams based in India. It defeated the Eastern Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in the final of the tournament in a victory that is still regarded by many as the greatest by an Indian team before Independence.
The national football team was also quite successful until the 1970s, qualifying for Olympic tournaments and the FIFA World Cup. The team qualified for the 1950 World Cup finals in Brazil, but could not appear as they still played in their bare feet at that time.
The Indian team also won the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games gold medals in football. In 1956 the team finished fourth at the Melbourne Olympics. In August 2007, the Indian team won the Nehru Cup for the first time in its history beating Syria 1-0.[2]
[edit] Women's football in India
Women's football has not had the relative head start over the rest of the world that the men's game has had, and also has not had the chance to spread through the country like its male counterpart. The game was administerd by the Women's Football Federation of India (WFFI) until the early 1990s when they were absorbed into the AIFF. However there are complaints that women's football is treated as a poor relation to the men's game leading to (unfulfilled) plans to de-merge the WFFI. [2]
The women's game, like the men's game, also has its early pioneers in the state of West Bengal. The large Kolkata teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, started women's club sides in the 2000/01 season, and they participate with other teams in the Calcutta Women's Football League. However it has been seen recently that players from Manipur have made far advances in the game. Players from these two states make up a large part of the India women's national football team.
The main women's national competition is played on a state vs state basis in the Senior Women National Championship [3]. There are also similar national championships for junior teams: Junior Girls National Championship (for under 19s) and the Under-17 Girls National Championship.
Some female players have become internationally recognised: in February 2000 Sujata Kar and Alpana Sil became the first Indian footballers to sign a contract outside India itself. They signed with the German team TSV Crailsheim but had to return after a month due to problems with the clearance of their international transfer.
The state of women's football in India, again like its male counterpart, is poor. In the 2003 AFC Women's Championship the Indian team was embarrassed by their results, especially after a 12-0 defeat to the Chinese women's team [4]. This is especially in the light of the poor support by the AIFF, especially of the national team. The team's trip to Germany was only made possible by Non Resident Indians in the country, and by the support of the German Football Association. Furthermore championship are said to be held in remote locations, and national media coverage is said to be lacking with reporting mostly restricted to state and local newspapers. [5]
[edit] Famous players
Sailen Manna
Chuni Goswami
P.K. Bannerjee
T. Balaram
Neville D'Souza
I.M Vijayan
Baichung Bhutia
Mohammed Salim
India reveals football goal
By Matthew Kenyon
BBC Sport in Delhi
PM Manmohan Singh kicks-starts India's new NFL season
A country of more than a billion people, but a national team ranked 157th in the world.
The football equation in India does not add up.
And yet in the 50s and 60s, India won gold medals at the Asian Games, finished fourth in the Olympics and even qualified for the World Cup.
The problem is, that in a huge country, football is confined to a few regions.
Calcutta (Kolkata), the former capital of British India, is the centre of the game.
The Calcutta derby, Mohan Began against East Bengal, is a match to rival anything Rangers and Celtic can throw up. Goa has the bug, thanks to its previous rule by the Portuguese.
But elsewhere, football comes in a distant second to cricket.
"As cricket grew, interest in football declined," says Novy Kapadia, India's top football writer.
"Fewer states were actively promoting the sport, so Indian football couldn't take advantage of the country's huge population, with the numbers supporting and playing the game dwindling.
"And there's been years of neglect in both infrastructure and youth development."
There is so much to do to develop the game
Gary Lovejoy, Chief Operating Officer, Zee Sports TV
Watching a second-tier game in the Delhi local league, it is hard to argue with that assessment.
Fewer than 100 people have turned out to watch. The standard of play is poor, and so is the pitch.
But there are plans to revitalise football in India.
NK Bhatia, secretary of the Delhi Soccer Association, says his region has been chosen for a pilot project to be launched by Fifa and the All India Football Federation next month.
"Football will be restructured at the grassroots level," he says.
"We've already conducted coaching for our school teams, 45 teams participated at the ages of 10 to 13 and 13 to 16. And we'll conduct a college league, for youth development.
"After that we'll develop into a semi-professional league, and then into fully professional."
Coaches, funded by Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation, will be placed with the clubs and every club in the Delhi league will have to have properly licensed trainers, and proper facilities at their grounds.
A similar project is already underway in the state of Manipur.
So that is the future, what about now?
INDIA'S NFL TEAMS
Mahindra United (Mumbai)
East Bengal (Calcutta)
Dempo Sports Club (Goa)
Sporting Club de Goa
JCT (Punjab)
Mohun Bagan (Calcutta)
Mohammedan Sporting (Calcutta)
Air India (Mumbai)
Churchill Brothers (Goa)
HAL (Bangalore)
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Mahindra United are the current NFL champions
India's National Football League, which is only 11 years old in its current form, is getting a new boost from television.
Zee Sports, a relatively new sports channel, has signed a 10-year deal with the AIFF to cover all Indian games and it plans to entice more viewers by offering a much slicker product.
"Ten years is a long time for a football contract," says Gary Lovejoy, the Chief Operating Officer of Zee Sports.
"The reason it is so long is that there is so much to do to develop the game here. There was little point in having Indian Football rights for just three years."
Lovejoy is an Englishman who has worked in sports television for most of his career.
He wants his product, visually at least, to match the best that Europe has to offer.
"We want to make Indian football look decent in the face of the high-quality production standards you get from the Premier League," he says.
"We're now covering football with up to 13 cameras, whereas previously the rights holder in India had gone down to four or five cameras, which simply was not good enough."
European leagues, and especially the Premiership, or EPL as it is known in India, are increasingly popular, especially with the young, urban middle classes.
Lovejoy wants to tap some of that interest and convert it to the Indian game.
The problem is that while the television coverage might be getting slicker, the standard of play in the Indian NFL is still far short of that served up by the likes of Manchester United and Barcelona.
And outside the football hotbeds of Bengal and Goa the intensity of support is simply not there.
Kapadia has a suggestion: "There are many states in India which don't have a club culture, so allow them to field an XI which would have massive support because of regional pride."
There are lots of plans to bring Indian football up to the standard to be expected of a nation of more than one billion people.
They are all a long way from fruition, but do not think India is lost to football just yet.
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Matthew Kenyon's look at football in India is part of the World Service's India Rising season, which runs until 11 February.
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