Currently Indian football is in a very peculiar
condition. After the disastrous result in the AFC challenge cup, the Indian
coach had raised a question about the commitment of the players. But above all, he also pointed (I would rather
call accused), towards the Indian clubs. He said that the number of foreigners
been used in domestic football is the key reason for poor results. According to Savio, maximum clubs are showing
interest in using 2 foreign strikers in their lineup. So, he means that Indian
strikers fail because of the lack of chance at the domestic level. The problem can also be that new fresh strikers
are not coming up because of the attitude of the club officials favoring
foreign striker. According to him AIFF should further decrease the foreigner
quota, which they have already done from 4 to 3 in playing squad from last
season. However in the AFC, there is a rule of using 4
foreigners in domestic football. Not only that, Savio even suggested that AIFF
should not allow more than 1 foreign striker in any squad in the domestic
league. But the question arises here. If a team registered a foreign striker as
a defender/midfielder (I think there should not be any rule that apart from
striker no foreigners can score) and using as a striker then what will happen?
Or who will monitor this rule in domestic football? As we can see in the
current format, there is a rule that any team can register 4 (3+1) foreigners in
their squad but they can use only 3 among 4 at a time in any match. But
sometimes few teams use 4 foreigners in some matches all together and no
monitoring was done then. So how will Savio’s proposed rule be monitored
fairly?
In addition, I have never found that
development can be possible after playing against equal or lower quality
players. Playing against good foreigners will make our players more competitive
in the world standards. Apart from providing some meaningless solutions to
AIFF, now it's high time to think about some concrete solution which will not
decrease the competitiveness of our domestic football. And also the Indian
strikers will be able to get as many chances so that they can shine or the new
talents will come up willingly. IM Vijayan came up at the time of Chima, Seriki,
Emeka were playing in the Indian football. Baichung came up when Junior, Okoro, Barreto was playing in the Indian football. And
they shined along with them. They sharpened their skills and intelligence by
playing along with them. Even current Indian star Sunil Chhetri matured after
playing beside good foreign players. If we move with proper planning then
without disturbing the older format (even we can follow AFC rule on
foreigners), we can develop our current Indian strikers and also can get fresh
new talents. Here I am trying to find solutions to some extend.
According to AFC guideline, AFC registered
domestic leagues can allow 4 foreigners in 3+1 combination. But in the AFC cup
or in the AFC champions league that number increased to 5 in 4+1 combination. However they can use only 4
foreigners (3+1) on the field for any match together. In the Indian
league, I-league, we had the rule of using 4 foreigners on the field at a time,
2 seasons ago. But suddenly AIFF has reduced that margin to 3 foreigners in the
field together among the 4 foreign players in the playing 11. Now if we
consider the performance graph of our national team for the last 4/5 years, we can
see that the peak period was 2 seasons ago during the formulation of 4
foreigners in playing 11. During that time period, the Indian national team had
won the Nehru Cup twice, AFC challenge cup at their first attempt and qualified
for the AFC cup after 25 years. Moreover, at that time we got some good
young players like Steven Dias, Sunil Chhetri, Gourmangi Singh, NP Pradeep,
Subrata Paul, Mohammad Rafi, and others. But during the last season and after
the new rule, forget about new talents, we got only failure in terms of result.
Our national team is suffering to win a single match in international standard.
At that time the Indian national team could score against the teams like Bahrain,
South Korea. In the AFC challenge cup final, India won against Tajikisthan by scoring
4 goals. And now, in the last AFC challenge cup, India did not score a single
goal. Using more foreigners means increasing the competition within the
domestic level, which will raise the standard of our players. But
unfortunately, AIFF is moving in a completely opposite direction. Currently Indian football does not have many matured strikers who can
rescue his team in any match at any condition. All the good strikers, starting
from Vijayan to Baichung to Sunil to Jeje, all have sharpened their skills and
maturity after playing with or against good foreigners. And now, the number of foreigners
has been reduced and a further decrease in the number is being proposed.
When Bob was the coach of India’s national
team, he proposed an excellent plan. It was to form the Arrows team with U-23
most talented players from all over India and make that team play in I league
regularly as a developmental program. AIFF has formed that team with U-23
players and has named it Indian arrows. That team performed very well in
the last year I-league, and few players from that squad became a regular member
of the national squad. The under aged national team with these boys, have also
performed well in international level. They have qualified for the 2nd round in the last Asian games. They have
drawn their match against Qatar in pre-Olympic qualifier and many more. But
after such class performance that team was disintegrated this year and maximum
players were divided and allotted to different clubs in India. But most
unfortunately, many of them cannot get a chance to play regularly in the first
team of their current club. Instead of keeping those talents in the Arrows
team, AIFF released them and formed the current squad with new young players.
Also according to current AIFF rules this arrows team was out of relegation
from the current I-league. But unfortunately, this current team cannot win a
single match in the entire season. That means, one thing is proved that
performance level has started to decrease without pressure. Even after
decreasing the competitiveness, the standard has become lower. From the last season
team, many are not eligible to play in the first squad of any Indian clubs. And
in the current squad, no player can enhance their skills and maturity to win a
single match in an entire season. This is too sad to discuss but it’s a fact.
One wrong decision by the parent body, has led to the wastage of talent of
not just one but of a bunch of future players.
Another major problem in Indian football is the
domestic league structure, which needs to be correct. Here we can see that
maximum number of tournaments are organized by the state associations but not
AIFF directly. AIFF only arranged 2 tournaments in an entire season, whereas
the state association tournaments or private tournament numbers are much more
than that. This hampered the proper domestic schedule and also disturbed the
focus of any team or players. Here any team cannot set their priorities
properly for continuous changing schedules. Let’s discuss it with an example. Any
Kolkata based club, have their primary focus on winning I-league then
the Fed cup, then the regional league and others. But we often see that, in the
regional league's match officials of various clubs or the supporters are
showing pressure on the team management for putting the first team on the field
to win the match against any standard of teams. So as the season proceeds, we
can see more injuries or loss of form due to over estimated number of matches (
the reason was stated in my first article) played by the key players of any
team. But if AIFF monitored it properly and plan scientifically then we can get
fitter and talented players throughout the entire season and also a standard
performance by the players without even changing the current infrastructure.
After considering the current infrastructure,
players status and availability, and the situation of Indian football I would
rather like to suggest another type of the foreigners’ rule in Indian football
system. According to me, AIFF should allow maximum 4 foreigners, as 3+1 system,
in the playing eleven for any team. But this rule should be only allowed for
the national level AIFF controlled tournaments. I mean only in I-league and in
Fedaration cup. Also for any other tournaments in India, AIFF should not allow
any foreigner for any team. In India regional leagues played a big role to find
new talents. Basically the regional leagues like CFL, GPL, MPL, BPL, and many
others should be used as a developmental planning. Also, various private tournaments
in India like Durand cup, IFA shield, EK Nyar Trophy, Sikkim governors gold cup
should be included within the developmental planning, and impose the rule of no
use of any foreign player in those tournaments. Not only this, but I would like
to suggest but another rule to AIFF, which needs to be imposed very strict,
and that is, the 40 match cap in a particular season, for every player. These 2
rules can be effective in a different manner as mentioned below:
a) We can get more fit players for our national
team.
b) Many players will get chances to play more
matches.
c) Another big problem, occurring now is
unexpected money speculation by some clubs for a few players. For imposing this
rule, every team have to increase the number of players in their total squad.
So money can be controlled.
d) Any developing player will get the full
chance to play in the regional leagues and many others domestic tournaments and
make themselves fit enough by playing and getting more experiences from those
matches. Those players will also get the match temperament by playing in
domestic tournaments. I remember, former East Bengal coach PK Banerjee used
Baichung Bhutia in the last 15/20 minutes initially, when he was only 16 and started
to play football for East Bengal. And after getting experienced, he became the
legend now and opened the new path for Indian footballers to play abroad.
e) We can see in regional leagues, the
competition level is very uneven among the local teams. Applying this rule will
decrease discrimination among the participating teams and make the tournament
more competitive.
f) The reserve team or B team will have the
focus to play matches throughout the entire season. (The chance of seating on
the reserve bench throughout the season will decrease).
g) After practicing with the main team or A
team along with more foreigners they can develop their game.
h) And for the first team players, they can get
the knowledge and experience after practicing along with many foreigners, which
will also increase the competitiveness within the team.
It can also help to take care of the interest
of the clubs and make them more competitive in international level and will
encourage them to do good in AFC along with nourishing new talents for the
future.
But now 1question arises. Even if AIFF imposes the rule of using 4 foreigners in playing 11 in Indian football, then will the clubs ever give regular chances to Indian strikers instead of
the foreigners? I can answer my question by mentioning 2 things. First, it is
not possible for any player, whether it is a foreigner or not to play all the
matches in an entire season. There will arise some card or injury problem. So,
that Indian player gets a chance. As I have said earlier, that's how the 4
foreigner rule became fruitful at that time (earlier). To substantiate my 2nd
point, I am assuming a situation. Let’s assume, in the current scenario, after
winning I-league or Fed cup, a team qualifies for AFC cup. Where the rule of 4
foreigners is imposed. Will those teams still prefer any Indian striker over a
foreign striker? The answer is no. Maximum Indian clubs prefer to go with 4
foreigners, where in maximum cases 1 defender, 1 midfielder, and 2 striker
combination is used. After playing in the domestic league, the Indian striker
can't get the chance to play in the AFC. So the exposure becomes zero. There
will be no addition of any value. Where as, if the combination is changed, the
performance is not up to the mark in AFC for any Indian football club (except
Dempo SC). Look at the success story of Dempo SC in AFC. Dempo SC reached
semifinal of AFC only after using 4 foreigners in the domestic level and
continuing the same combination of domestic football in AFC matches. One thing
we need to keep in mind is that a proper and sustained plan is very important
for any development program. However, AIFF should take initiatives to send our
Indian players abroad in medium standard European leagues (I discussed this in
my previous article). Only using these rules can uplift the standard of our
current Indian football. Successful application of this regulation will increase
the competitiveness within the team and increase the standard and also spread
the game across the country to get more talents.
A lot of new talent is coming up, more professional clubs have started, and existing clubs are trying to be more professional. Money is flowing for transferring players. And in this kind of a scenario, an intelligent step by AIFF only can change the entire picture of Indian football. If we consider the most developed teams in the Asian zones, which is of world standard, we can see that they can never cut the foreigner quota in their domestic football. However, they have always been in favor of allowing more good foreigners in their domestic football. Even world football is developing in the same manner i.e., globalization of the players. No nation can be successful without the success of their domestic leagues, or domestic teams in their continent level. Performing well on a regular basis at Asian level by our clubs can be one of the key parameters to develop our national football team. If we see the recent successes of Indian football, we will find the same thing. 2007-10 was the most successful time period for our national team in the recent past. There, we can see that, in our national team, maximum players were from Dempo SC. And within that time period Dempo SC played the AFC cup regularly and even reached up to AFC semifinal. The Indian talents like, Anthony Perera, Cliford Miranda, Joqauim Abranches, Samir Naik any many more came up from this club. And they were the key members behind the success story of their clubs and nation as well. They developed themselves only after playing beside foreigners like Ranty Martins, Beto, Ogba Kalu, Chidi and many more. And even their development was of so high quality that even Dempo coach sometimes used 2/3 foreigners instead of 4 in AFC level, and they still got results from that move. So, we need to follow the previous formula again. And need to concentrate on our roots more and plan to develop those talented young stars. We just need to keep the momentum of the success story of the period 2007-10, and AIFF is the only governing body who can do this.
If we started to follow this rule from now, maybe we will win the 2014 AFC Challenge cup and get qualified for 2015 Asia cup in Australia after 2011. Again we don’t have to wait for another 25 years to reach to the top level in Asian region.
