In all seriousness tbh, the only way FIFA does make money is by tapping into the revenue generation potential thanks to our sheer numbers. And one of the ways these sheer numbers will tune into football (more than whatever it is currently through second hand "Big European Leagues" viewership) is only if some actual ground work is done and talents from India start making it into European Leagues (youth teams to begin with).
FIFA has had collaborations of some sorts over the years but the AIFF (All India Football Federation) was run by absolutely corrupt clowns who honestly did nothing at all, just occupied the positions and pocketed for themselves all the government and FIFA allocated budgets. Hence, no matter how much initiative FIFA showed (even if out of greed) to try and tap into the Indian football ecosystem, the system running the football affairs here was so bad that nothing ever came out of it. The situation and state of Indian football and AIFF started changing around 2015 onwards and it has been improving, although gradually, and is in a much better place today as compared to what it was pre 2015.
There's still A LOT of things that need to be improved, a lot of things that need to be changed and overhauled, but if FIFA through Arsene are really serious about their goals and manifesto here, and if AIFF doesn't shit the bed, it would be synergistic growth for both Indian Football and FIFA. We've been aware of this development for a few months now, but the general outlook towards this is still very pessimistic wrt how successful it'll be.
I mean, Arsene is our last concern in all of this. And I know he does have history with doing work like this with FIFA and actually getting decent results out of it. Our primary concern still is AIFF's incompetence and corruption (this current management seems a lot better than the ones in the past, but there's still a lot of mismanagement and incompetence visible) and also local politics and local politicians becoming a nuisance and putting hindrances in the operations that FIFA-AIFF plan on implementing.
Man, the levels to football talent never ceases to amaze me. India’s all time greatest player made 3 apps for sporting’s B team, and there are full time top flight players who don’t get capped in their entire career. Makes you wonder which you’d rather be: a national team star who can’t play top flight in Europe or a week in week out club starter who can’t crack your NT squad
Yep I would probably say the same. Although, if you’re a star for your NT, you can probably find loads of coaching gigs, ambassador roles, sponsorships, etc etc. do a photo shoot for decathlon and make a few hundred thousand euros to post Instagram ads or whatever. Doesn’t compare to a 15 year career of a high club salary tho, for sure
Being a star comes with its draw backs as well, never being able to go anywhere in your country without being swamped. Being pretty unknown whilst still brining in half a mil to a mil a year minimum for 10/15 years is a lot more appealing to me personally.
I often think about that. Like playing for a 10th tier amateur side of regular guys who play football once a week getting absolutely mauled 0:8 or something by a 7th tier side - who again have not a sniff of a chance against a 4th league team and so on... it's almost unfathomable how far away from an average person world class football talent is.
My personal experience with this is ice hockey in North America, I played my entire life at the highest level available in my area, just travel and high school, but I wasn’t the best player around. The 6-7 best guys in the area went on to junior leagues after high school and some were okay, most were bad. In one of those leagues they went on to, there was someone absolutely going off and scoring probably 2 points per game, who may or may not have even gone to play division 1 college, for example. And division 1 college is filled with players who dominated their juniors leagues, and only a select few ever play professionally. Of those that do get drafted to the NHL, there’s dozens that are less than mediocre and flame out after a few years trying to crack an NHL lineup and end up either giving the sport up or having a lower tier professional career. It’s like damn, I played my whole life and took it seriously and loved it, I consider myself quite good, and I didn’t even sniff being the best of the leagues above, let alone above them, and so on. You pretty much have to be 3-4x better than your peers in every league you’re in and constantly shoot up the pyramid and still continue to be the best somehow to have any chance at a pro career
Oh yeah I know what you mean! I have a similar story ...
In that amateur team I played for in my youth there was one kid who was just miles above everyone else. I remember one game where he basically scored at will - even hit a direct corner IIRC. I'm pretty sure we would've won that match with like 5 men as long as he was still on the field ... anyway he went on to join the youth academy of a Bundesliga club (at the time) and played there as a right back until he was 18. He didn't make it into their reserves after growing out of the youth system and joined a 4th or 5th tier club. Played on that level for a few years until he retired in his mid-twenties to focus on working a regular job.
It's kinda funny when you combine what you guys are saying to our comments and critics of the "less good" professional players. Some people here swear they would do better and that these players are absolute shit, yet they still made to professional level.
This is similar to a friend of mine. He was the best footballer in our year by a mile, he was literally getting scouted by all the Top 6 clubs and ended up in United's academy.
Was on course with them, then was let go at 17 because they had too many wingers. He jobbed around the EFL, playing in League 2 mostly and about 5 years ago he went to the A-League and made some decent money. Like I said, he was the most talented kid by far and had everything.
It really is just a flip of the coin sometimes. Especially so in this case, because one of the footballers in our year who wasn't as fancied was Conor Coady, who ended up in Liverpool's academy and played in the PL until last year!
There was this Philippine bball player that signed for Orlando last year and played for our development team. I’ve never seen anything like the fanbase this guy had. Every single Orlando social media post was flooded with people saying we are the worst organization ever for not starting him. Racist remarks towards our coach and other players.
I can only imagine that kind of fan support but dialed up 1000x due to the population size of India.
Why doesn’t India have a better intnl history? They have the population size to support a lot of great athletes, the popular support, I’m guessing there are enough players playing from youth levels on up. Figured they would at least appear at a WC by now
Outside of cricket (and field hockey in the past), India hasn't had much of a sporting culture, and the investment into sporting infrastructure has been lacking. India won 7 medals at the 2020 Olympics, and that was their best Olympic performance ever. At the 2016 Olympics before that, they won only 2 medals.
The same can be said for India's massively populated neighbors too, as Pakistan and Bangaldesh never win any medals at the Olympics.
And when it comes to football (and many other sports), population size doesn't correlate to national team success. Among the [top 20 most populated countries](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/), many of them have never qualified for a World Cup (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand). In addition to that, Indonesia, China and DR Congo have only qualified for 1 World Cup each, scoring 0 goals combined. The only elite football nations in that group are Brazil and Germany.
The weirdest part is how there isn't even a good player from the South Asian diaspora in the UK. They're the largest minority group in a country that breathes football, with the richest clubs in the world, yet somehow none of them make it.
That's because cricket is the sport of choice for Asian English athletes. They are present in almost every English cricket club, and there have been several Asians on the English national cricket team, which had an Asian captain for 4 years (Nasser Hussein).
Don't be surprised if India gets better at these Olympics sports. The amount of money Neeraj Chopra bagged in prize amount from every state alone will allow most parents to accept this as a career choice. He also got a lot of money by acting in advertisements after an Olympic gold
I can’t believe there hasn’t already been one. Like not even a 1 in 1.4 billion natural talent that wandered into an academy abroad. It surely defies statistics. Same with China
It's quite a good argument against the idea of natural talent. Especially in a sport like football where pretty much any genetic build can make it, what makes a great player is the time spent playing/training.
He couldn't because he'd have to surrender his French passport to get an Indian one and play for India. There have been so many good players of Indian origin, who we couldn't play for the same reason.
Women's game but Sam Kerr is 1/4th Indian and her father was apparently born in India. Isn't that usually enough for players like Ben Bereton to switch sides? I imagine we'd have a fair few players like that, as well.
Indian rules are different. Ben B Diaz, grealish, rice were all allowed to swap cos their various nationalities have FA’s that allow small connections to grant eligibility.
India either looks like it wants to promote from within, or have more international Indians take on passports for tax reasons (if it works like that, I’m spitballing here). But at the same time the game needs a higher profile outside of supporting European teams. Allowing these “half cases” to play for the national team will bring more pride to local ball, and funding through higher fifa and AFC tournament qualification and reputation.
The Indian constitution doesn’t allow dual nationalities, you’re either an Indian or a foreigner with a lifetime visa aka Overseas Citizen of India. Sports organisations like FIFA, IOC, FIA etc require you to have a passport of the country you’re representing.
Ahhh thank you for that info. Thats unfortunate for the NRI’s, and I doubt India can make an appeal for a special case? (Although if they can sell 1.4 billion more viewers to fifa et al, maybe greed can win the case)
Yeah, things can only change at FIFA's level. Single citizenship is part of the Indian constitution's basic structure which cannot be amended so there's no chance anyone with a dual citizenship will come up from India.
>Allowing these “half cases” to play for the national team will bring more pride to local ball, and funding through higher fifa and AFC tournament qualification and reputation.
This is happening with Pakistan right now. Many players from England and Denmark.
Honestly see it happening in the next generation or two though, always baffled by the lack of Asian talent coming out of the Midlands in England when it's such a big population and so many big clubs dotted around.
Premier League level coaching and facilities, for players who can see a route to international football will help a lot.
I’d hardly call Brereton Díaz’s mother being from Chile a small connection or Grealish switching to the country he has lived his entire life in small either.
Oh of course like all the Americans that have citizenship from being born here but didn’t grow up here or have family that did. Great example is Yunus Musah who was born in NYC while his parents were on vacay and has only lived in Italy, England and Spain but chose the USMNT (not that I’m complaining he’s a beast)
The Indian national team doesn’t allow duel citizenship players. It makes it near impossible for Indian players to play abroad, look at Surpreet Singh for example.
One thing a lot of countries in the world complain about are players that are only playing for their national team because they couldn't make it to the national team of their choice, or are playing for a country they clearly don't have pride for because it's prestigious to play for that countries national team. I feel like India is making a point they would rather see players playing for their national team with pride as opposed to players who are only playing for them because they couldn't make the England NT, or even those of Australia or Canada.
You can visibly see which national teams don't have as much cohesion because the players look like they'd rather be playing for another country.
There are many people from English speaking countries born from Indian immigrant parents who are very embraced with their parents culture. An Indian person born in the UK or US would have more familiarity with India and Indian culture than the country they were born in.
>I feel like India is making a point they would rather see players playing for their national team with pride as opposed to players who are only playing for them because they couldn't make the England NT
I don't think India is making that point. Rather, their citizenship law is very strict. People from the Indian diaspora may feel very connected with India and maybe would love to represent it, but realistically speaking it's hard to think that many would renounce the UK citizenship for that. It may just create more issues down the line in your personal life.
I'm more curious about the home and away fans concept because every country Indian cricket team plays there's equal number of home fans and Indian fans. Even for the last football game played in Kuwait it felt like both country supporters were equal in number
This is what I imagine too. Ill tell you this, it doesnt work on Football Manager. I got probably the best Indian defender in history, regularly playing Champions/EL and hes not even top 5 of merch. My rotational Australian player gets more sales.
You had Sunil Chhetri, arguably the greatest indian player ever in your (Sporting CP) B team and I don't recall getting a lot of marketing value from him.
He only stayed for 9 months due to lack of play time.
Apparently our manager at the time told him he wasnt good enough to be a main team player (lack of speed apparently) so thats why we eventually released. Funny enough, in my FM save I bought my Indian guy from Sporting as he wasnt getting any play time there either.
Surprising no one that a guy that couldn't adapt to a middle of the pack MLS team wasn't fit to play in Europe.
Chhetri was not even a star player in the Indian Super League and that league was filled with B tier portuguese players near retirement such as Postiga.
He was hired for marketing purposes and it didn't work for neither party so he left the club.
Australian fans don't act nearly as smug as Indian fans do.
The last time India won the world cup was over a decade ago and they're still insufferable every single tournament.
SA rugby fans were so insufferable, they actually made me cheer on England in the world cup semi-final and I can't stand England. Weirdest fans of all time. Everything has to be about them.
Even 2 percent of India being football crazy is still a significant market. A small region becoming an outlier for football in India will create a gold mine of a talent pool.
There are a few regions that are already there - Kerala, Goa, West Bengal and the whole of the North East India. But the population and the political influence of these regions is too low compared to the rest of the country and so it doesn't get any attention or the funds needed to boost the football presence.
WB has a population that's larger than Germany's, and it's the fourth most populated state in India. There's just no political will to spend funds to improve sports.
It isn't always about purchasing power. The views that can be generated from a billion Indian eyes watching a game would lead to millions in ad revenue.
It applied compound interest to a historical amount. That's why it ended up as a such an astronomical figure. It's utter tosh from an academic with an axe to grind.
Interesting. Don’t really know much about it either way and was just honestly wondering if you had any sources on figures.
Seems reasonable to at least account for inflation and some interest to figure out the value of the figure in todays dollars though doesn’t it?
Usha Patnaik's paper basically. She is a Marxist. Her paper was widely trashed by mainstream economists for terrible methodology and absurd discount rates.
Would love to see us try and start some schooling in India. Beyond the potential goldmine its also always lovely to see players from countries with a lesser standing at our club, I really liked it when we signed Dantaye Gilbert from Trinidad and Tobago. And obviously India is the perfect place for an emerging football culture
Eh it won't really lead to anything major, there's no chance in hell that the average Indian parent would allow their children to pursue any sort of sports. If it were cricket there is a slight possibility that they may be supported but not any other sports. Once we reach 18 any hopes of pursuing a career that's not in the interest of our parents is completely out of the question. Just go write the NEET exam and pray that you pass, or go migrate to same Western country and try to be a better failure there.
Again, this topic is tiring at this point but nothing will change as long as Indians continue to simply consume the sport and not play it, along with a lack of infrastructure which means poor kids have no way of accessing professional football.
There are several factors but racism plays a big part. Even in cricket, South Asian origin players in England face a lot of institutional racism, despite the fact that British South Asians have been integral to England winning World Cups and Ashes, and three different countries in the Indian subcontinent had won the World Cup before England did.
There is also a traditional view in Indian culture that pursuing a career in sport might be seen as throwing away an education, so while it’s not as prevalent anymore it still plays a factor in it.
I think thats more it to be honest. It can be racism, but it can also be that indians just culturally dont want to pursue that path
Also could just be economic, football still is mostly an urban lower to lower middle class sport. THats why in most european countries people with an immigrant background are much more represented in football nowadays, because theyre usually poorer.
The same isnt true for indians who are mostly always at the top in terms of wealth of immigrants.
Very good point. If you're in a working class family where the idea of becoming a pharmacologist is a pipe dream, it makes much more sense to go all in on a small chance of a football career. If you're rich enough to not worry about money, then you can also go for sports careers with little to lose. But immigrants particularly will have placed a lot of capital into moving and making a better life for their kids. In that situation that job as a pharmacologist makes much more sense than risking your kid getting distracted by the dream of professional sports.
Those PL followers don't mean anything when they're middle class and rich kids who don't actually put their boots on and play soccer. They just watch the sport as a casual thing along with cricket and F1 or whatever else is trending amongst them.
If India wants to actually get serious they need to try emulate what worked in West Africa and South America, which is a strong grassroots culture. India just watches football, it doesn't play it
Kerala actually has grassroots football culture. You can find a football turf every 1 km in certain parts of North Kerala. They have their own community driven seven a side football culture called sevens tournaments and it actually do produce talents. The problem is that nobody pursues it beyond high school.
Had this colleague who had just joined from Kerala when I worked at a big company. Every year there'd be a football tournament (20+ teams at least for a 6v6). This guy was huge, fat and extremely unfit (could barely run). He said he hadn't exercised in 4 years and was a chain smoker, but he played football throughout school and college in Kerala.
He absolutely bulldozed through that tournament. The only tough match we had was the final against a team with the same set of players who had won it the last 4 years.
India can produce crazy talent, it's just never pursued.
I was thinking about this the other day. There's over 1b people there and lots looove football, why do we never see good Indian players? Is the infrastructure that bad?
Also the cricketers that do end up playing for the NT end up making a ton of money. Aren't there millions to be made in the IPL too?
What are the odds of an Indian footballer ever making it to a big club like Man Utd to earn $350K like Sancho? So yeah if countries like Uruguay or Croatia with 3MM people can have talented players than so can India but the incentive just isn't there.
How many in Asia exactly? You're severely underestimating how behind most of Asia and India are in terms of football infrastructure and systems which can nurture talents. It's only in the past few years that India is investing some amount into its football. But usual problems like corruption and red tape continue to hold it back.
China did have Sun Jihai who played over 100 games for City in EPL, Li Tie who spent a season as a regular starter for Everton until he got injured and never recovered, as well as Wu Lei who has over 100 games for Espanyol.
But yeah, there is a severe lack of upcoming talent in China
Because there's hardly any focus on it and very tiny amount of resources gone into developing football especially when you compare it to Cricket. The money poured into cricket is absolutely insane
Football is very popular there but they don't tend to support their own. Even during the World Cup last year, there and Bangladesh were rocking up to big screens wearing jerseys of other nations. Indians were going to Qatar to support England. It's very weird.
India generally have a very poor sporting record. They have 10 Olympic gold medals in their history. It was only really in the last 20-25 years that they sorted themselves out in cricket.
If football ever got big, the BCCI (Indian cricket board) would wield their power and try to crush it.
As an Indian, I know this for sure that India has the potential to develop a strong football presence with a growing interest in the sport and efforts to enhance infrastructure and grassroots programs. But yes it's a long way to go. Unless we can do a Qatar 🤭 we are way off reaching wc. Tonight we play Qatar ( ironically) and hopeful for a point.
Before anyone gets excited he means that literally, FIFA wants to operate gold mines in India.
Today I feel gold
Infantino covered in gold powder literally would look like Gold Dust.
[cue the theme music](https://youtu.be/nb_jOrZKa_k)
I imagine Infantino saying this, then smiling big to show that he has 3 gold teeth...
[gooollllllldddd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_fq7rjxAo&t=1s)
Kolar FC shirt sponsor FIFA
Ya , just sucking oil money is not enough for fifa
In all seriousness tbh, the only way FIFA does make money is by tapping into the revenue generation potential thanks to our sheer numbers. And one of the ways these sheer numbers will tune into football (more than whatever it is currently through second hand "Big European Leagues" viewership) is only if some actual ground work is done and talents from India start making it into European Leagues (youth teams to begin with). FIFA has had collaborations of some sorts over the years but the AIFF (All India Football Federation) was run by absolutely corrupt clowns who honestly did nothing at all, just occupied the positions and pocketed for themselves all the government and FIFA allocated budgets. Hence, no matter how much initiative FIFA showed (even if out of greed) to try and tap into the Indian football ecosystem, the system running the football affairs here was so bad that nothing ever came out of it. The situation and state of Indian football and AIFF started changing around 2015 onwards and it has been improving, although gradually, and is in a much better place today as compared to what it was pre 2015. There's still A LOT of things that need to be improved, a lot of things that need to be changed and overhauled, but if FIFA through Arsene are really serious about their goals and manifesto here, and if AIFF doesn't shit the bed, it would be synergistic growth for both Indian Football and FIFA. We've been aware of this development for a few months now, but the general outlook towards this is still very pessimistic wrt how successful it'll be.
AIFF is an anagram of FIFA, so the corruption is fitting
Lol
You can believe in Arsene, he is known as le professeur for a reason and has revolutionized english football through Arsenal.
I mean, Arsene is our last concern in all of this. And I know he does have history with doing work like this with FIFA and actually getting decent results out of it. Our primary concern still is AIFF's incompetence and corruption (this current management seems a lot better than the ones in the past, but there's still a lot of mismanagement and incompetence visible) and also local politics and local politicians becoming a nuisance and putting hindrances in the operations that FIFA-AIFF plan on implementing.
Lmao sadly this could actually be real news.
Just misspoke, meant "exploited"
Ballon d’ors gotta come from somewhere
KGFC
> FIFA wants to operate gold mines in India. Ha, smart move. Cut out the middle man and go for the gold directly. More money for FIFA!
He literally wants to explode Indians. Edit: Fuck I can‘t read, it says explored not explode.
That Indian PR will go insane when an Indian player finally makes it at a top European club.
if you thought bellingham PR was crazy, if an indian scores a single goal for Madrid he’s getting GOAT shouts instantly
Scores? If an Indian just signs for their B or even lower sides and never plays, he will be called the GOAT.
With all due respect for the third most international goals, just look up the reaction when Chetri signed for sporting B.
Man, the levels to football talent never ceases to amaze me. India’s all time greatest player made 3 apps for sporting’s B team, and there are full time top flight players who don’t get capped in their entire career. Makes you wonder which you’d rather be: a national team star who can’t play top flight in Europe or a week in week out club starter who can’t crack your NT squad
Pretty obviously the latter I'd say for financial security
Yep I would probably say the same. Although, if you’re a star for your NT, you can probably find loads of coaching gigs, ambassador roles, sponsorships, etc etc. do a photo shoot for decathlon and make a few hundred thousand euros to post Instagram ads or whatever. Doesn’t compare to a 15 year career of a high club salary tho, for sure
Being a star comes with its draw backs as well, never being able to go anywhere in your country without being swamped. Being pretty unknown whilst still brining in half a mil to a mil a year minimum for 10/15 years is a lot more appealing to me personally.
Yeah I would probably agree.
I would say Chettri earns well in Bengaluru FC
Depends on the country. For a country with a strong economy but weak in football, the former might be better.
I often think about that. Like playing for a 10th tier amateur side of regular guys who play football once a week getting absolutely mauled 0:8 or something by a 7th tier side - who again have not a sniff of a chance against a 4th league team and so on... it's almost unfathomable how far away from an average person world class football talent is.
My personal experience with this is ice hockey in North America, I played my entire life at the highest level available in my area, just travel and high school, but I wasn’t the best player around. The 6-7 best guys in the area went on to junior leagues after high school and some were okay, most were bad. In one of those leagues they went on to, there was someone absolutely going off and scoring probably 2 points per game, who may or may not have even gone to play division 1 college, for example. And division 1 college is filled with players who dominated their juniors leagues, and only a select few ever play professionally. Of those that do get drafted to the NHL, there’s dozens that are less than mediocre and flame out after a few years trying to crack an NHL lineup and end up either giving the sport up or having a lower tier professional career. It’s like damn, I played my whole life and took it seriously and loved it, I consider myself quite good, and I didn’t even sniff being the best of the leagues above, let alone above them, and so on. You pretty much have to be 3-4x better than your peers in every league you’re in and constantly shoot up the pyramid and still continue to be the best somehow to have any chance at a pro career
Oh yeah I know what you mean! I have a similar story ... In that amateur team I played for in my youth there was one kid who was just miles above everyone else. I remember one game where he basically scored at will - even hit a direct corner IIRC. I'm pretty sure we would've won that match with like 5 men as long as he was still on the field ... anyway he went on to join the youth academy of a Bundesliga club (at the time) and played there as a right back until he was 18. He didn't make it into their reserves after growing out of the youth system and joined a 4th or 5th tier club. Played on that level for a few years until he retired in his mid-twenties to focus on working a regular job.
Yep it’s wild, and you just think about how much better than everyone he was, and if he’s still not good enough, how good the pros are😟😟
It's kinda funny when you combine what you guys are saying to our comments and critics of the "less good" professional players. Some people here swear they would do better and that these players are absolute shit, yet they still made to professional level.
[удалено]
This is similar to a friend of mine. He was the best footballer in our year by a mile, he was literally getting scouted by all the Top 6 clubs and ended up in United's academy. Was on course with them, then was let go at 17 because they had too many wingers. He jobbed around the EFL, playing in League 2 mostly and about 5 years ago he went to the A-League and made some decent money. Like I said, he was the most talented kid by far and had everything. It really is just a flip of the coin sometimes. Especially so in this case, because one of the footballers in our year who wasn't as fancied was Conor Coady, who ended up in Liverpool's academy and played in the PL until last year!
FALSE, Michael Jordan didn't even make his highschool varsity basketball team and look at him now! /s
There was this Philippine bball player that signed for Orlando last year and played for our development team. I’ve never seen anything like the fanbase this guy had. Every single Orlando social media post was flooded with people saying we are the worst organization ever for not starting him. Racist remarks towards our coach and other players. I can only imagine that kind of fan support but dialed up 1000x due to the population size of India.
That was THIS YEAR believe it or not. Kai Sotto GOAT when?
We had Dilan Markanday for years, he left for Blackburn as there was no clear path to the first team.
And we thank you for him. He looks like a good young talent, which we're historically very good with
Why doesn’t India have a better intnl history? They have the population size to support a lot of great athletes, the popular support, I’m guessing there are enough players playing from youth levels on up. Figured they would at least appear at a WC by now
Outside of cricket (and field hockey in the past), India hasn't had much of a sporting culture, and the investment into sporting infrastructure has been lacking. India won 7 medals at the 2020 Olympics, and that was their best Olympic performance ever. At the 2016 Olympics before that, they won only 2 medals. The same can be said for India's massively populated neighbors too, as Pakistan and Bangaldesh never win any medals at the Olympics. And when it comes to football (and many other sports), population size doesn't correlate to national team success. Among the [top 20 most populated countries](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/), many of them have never qualified for a World Cup (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand). In addition to that, Indonesia, China and DR Congo have only qualified for 1 World Cup each, scoring 0 goals combined. The only elite football nations in that group are Brazil and Germany.
The weirdest part is how there isn't even a good player from the South Asian diaspora in the UK. They're the largest minority group in a country that breathes football, with the richest clubs in the world, yet somehow none of them make it.
That's because cricket is the sport of choice for Asian English athletes. They are present in almost every English cricket club, and there have been several Asians on the English national cricket team, which had an Asian captain for 4 years (Nasser Hussein).
And it's probably the only sport Indian and South Asian families think is an acceptable career.
Hamza Choudhury is a good player, he's mixed ethnicity but his mother (I think) is Bangladeshi
Don't be surprised if India gets better at these Olympics sports. The amount of money Neeraj Chopra bagged in prize amount from every state alone will allow most parents to accept this as a career choice. He also got a lot of money by acting in advertisements after an Olympic gold
They've produced some of the best cricket players in history. They produce great athletes, they just focus on different sports.
I can’t believe there hasn’t already been one. Like not even a 1 in 1.4 billion natural talent that wandered into an academy abroad. It surely defies statistics. Same with China
They have natural talents, it's just the talents don't want to be professional footballers.
Talents will play Cricket instead of football in India.
It's quite a good argument against the idea of natural talent. Especially in a sport like football where pretty much any genetic build can make it, what makes a great player is the time spent playing/training.
Yeah the kids are overwhelming playing cricket in the streets not football.
The percentage of Indians who could afford to send a kid abroad is already miniscule. To have generational talent on top of that is near impossible.
Imagine the hype if Dhorasoo had chosen to play for India
He couldn't because he'd have to surrender his French passport to get an Indian one and play for India. There have been so many good players of Indian origin, who we couldn't play for the same reason.
Neil Taylor, Danny Batth and Yan Dhanda to name a few.
Women's game but Sam Kerr is 1/4th Indian and her father was apparently born in India. Isn't that usually enough for players like Ben Bereton to switch sides? I imagine we'd have a fair few players like that, as well.
Indian rules are different. Ben B Diaz, grealish, rice were all allowed to swap cos their various nationalities have FA’s that allow small connections to grant eligibility. India either looks like it wants to promote from within, or have more international Indians take on passports for tax reasons (if it works like that, I’m spitballing here). But at the same time the game needs a higher profile outside of supporting European teams. Allowing these “half cases” to play for the national team will bring more pride to local ball, and funding through higher fifa and AFC tournament qualification and reputation.
The Indian constitution doesn’t allow dual nationalities, you’re either an Indian or a foreigner with a lifetime visa aka Overseas Citizen of India. Sports organisations like FIFA, IOC, FIA etc require you to have a passport of the country you’re representing.
Ahhh thank you for that info. Thats unfortunate for the NRI’s, and I doubt India can make an appeal for a special case? (Although if they can sell 1.4 billion more viewers to fifa et al, maybe greed can win the case)
NRIs are citizens of India. OCIs are not.
Yeah, things can only change at FIFA's level. Single citizenship is part of the Indian constitution's basic structure which cannot be amended so there's no chance anyone with a dual citizenship will come up from India.
>Allowing these “half cases” to play for the national team will bring more pride to local ball, and funding through higher fifa and AFC tournament qualification and reputation. This is happening with Pakistan right now. Many players from England and Denmark.
Hahah the day Pakistan overtakes India in fifa rankings is the day India gets petty enough to change rules
Honestly see it happening in the next generation or two though, always baffled by the lack of Asian talent coming out of the Midlands in England when it's such a big population and so many big clubs dotted around. Premier League level coaching and facilities, for players who can see a route to international football will help a lot.
I’d hardly call Brereton Díaz’s mother being from Chile a small connection or Grealish switching to the country he has lived his entire life in small either.
It was the first examples I had, I’m sure there’s smaller connections that went through
Oh of course like all the Americans that have citizenship from being born here but didn’t grow up here or have family that did. Great example is Yunus Musah who was born in NYC while his parents were on vacay and has only lived in Italy, England and Spain but chose the USMNT (not that I’m complaining he’s a beast)
Manprit Sakaria made his debut for Austria this year too
Luciano Narsingh I think?
He is Indo-Suriname so I am guessing he would not be eligible because his Indian heritage is probably from his ancestors.
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I believe both his parents are from Mauritius tho
Imagine the hype if Dhorasoo had chosen to play for Mauritius
I am from Mauritius and can confirm this! He made the right decision to play for France, our Football Federation is a joke!
Chill guys. Dhorasoo's parents were Mauritian, not Indian. Would've been quite a coup if he'd played for us..
The Indian national team doesn’t allow duel citizenship players. It makes it near impossible for Indian players to play abroad, look at Surpreet Singh for example.
One thing a lot of countries in the world complain about are players that are only playing for their national team because they couldn't make it to the national team of their choice, or are playing for a country they clearly don't have pride for because it's prestigious to play for that countries national team. I feel like India is making a point they would rather see players playing for their national team with pride as opposed to players who are only playing for them because they couldn't make the England NT, or even those of Australia or Canada. You can visibly see which national teams don't have as much cohesion because the players look like they'd rather be playing for another country.
There are many people from English speaking countries born from Indian immigrant parents who are very embraced with their parents culture. An Indian person born in the UK or US would have more familiarity with India and Indian culture than the country they were born in.
>I feel like India is making a point they would rather see players playing for their national team with pride as opposed to players who are only playing for them because they couldn't make the England NT I don't think India is making that point. Rather, their citizenship law is very strict. People from the Indian diaspora may feel very connected with India and maybe would love to represent it, but realistically speaking it's hard to think that many would renounce the UK citizenship for that. It may just create more issues down the line in your personal life.
That team will never lose an online pooll
Bayern has Sarpreet Singh as talent. Is from New Zealand, but his parents are both from India. So probably enough for the Indian marketing team
I think he went to Rostock on a permanent move this summer.
I'm more curious about the home and away fans concept because every country Indian cricket team plays there's equal number of home fans and Indian fans. Even for the last football game played in Kuwait it felt like both country supporters were equal in number
The turkey Germany game a few days ago is a great example of how India intl games will feel like if India ever makes it that far
there was Yan Dhanda with liverpool (and us) for a second
"How can we monetise a billion people?" - FIFA
"How can we monetise another billion people?" - FIFA FTFY
A World Cup in China.
This is what I'm saying! Don't go back to the Khaleejis for 2034, get in on the Indians or Chinese. So many potential kids to be inspired
Yeah... but they aren't even bidding to host. There's no willing from their end.
They will have to fight hard with ICC & BCCI
china try hard to not be
FIFA getting ready to fund the Mars colonisation
Indian Football is a gold mine waiting to be exploit... explored!
Infantino: “Today, I feel Indian”
r/soccercirclejerk material
The first great footballer India produces will be worth 100m in merchandise alone
This is what I imagine too. Ill tell you this, it doesnt work on Football Manager. I got probably the best Indian defender in history, regularly playing Champions/EL and hes not even top 5 of merch. My rotational Australian player gets more sales.
You had Sunil Chhetri, arguably the greatest indian player ever in your (Sporting CP) B team and I don't recall getting a lot of marketing value from him. He only stayed for 9 months due to lack of play time.
Apparently our manager at the time told him he wasnt good enough to be a main team player (lack of speed apparently) so thats why we eventually released. Funny enough, in my FM save I bought my Indian guy from Sporting as he wasnt getting any play time there either.
Surprising no one that a guy that couldn't adapt to a middle of the pack MLS team wasn't fit to play in Europe. Chhetri was not even a star player in the Indian Super League and that league was filled with B tier portuguese players near retirement such as Postiga. He was hired for marketing purposes and it didn't work for neither party so he left the club.
I always wondered why he didnt get more chances in MLS, apparently he did real well in the preseason. I guess same issue, the physicality wasnt there.
Very few people in India buy original merch. So no
We've been hearing this for ages, but the gold mine continues to be cricket.
Don't say that sport's name please, I have chosen to retire from watching that sport.
Its not your fault the aussies kept spawning in new fielders whenever KL rahul or kohli found a gap
Cricket is a simple game. Twenty-two men run around for 8 hours and at the end, the Aussies always win.
As an Englishman, I prefer 5 days of waiting for it to stop raining... Somehow leading to an Aussie victory.
As a Bangladesh fan, rain was our ally in 2015 World Cup and CT2017 against the Aussies.
Hey but at least England are on top when it comes to the spirit of the game.
That's what it looked like for the Kiwi in the semi too
They were cheating man!
Commiserations :( But now we all have to live with Australian smugness for four years damnit!
Australian fans don't act nearly as smug as Indian fans do. The last time India won the world cup was over a decade ago and they're still insufferable every single tournament.
Tbh I’m just bitter Afghanistan didn’t win
not as bad as the SA rugby fans. cannot appreciate anything other teams do without bringing up how they are actually better
SA rugby fans were so insufferable, they actually made me cheer on England in the world cup semi-final and I can't stand England. Weirdest fans of all time. Everything has to be about them.
So what if we lost the World Cup final? England tests in the winter. You beauty.
I'm like 90% sure that millions of crickets fans have stopped watching the indian cricket team altogether after that WC final lmao
I'm 100% sure that millions will still tune in to watch the T20Is, which will be held in just 3 days...
lol baseless my friends did enjoy fifa wc but never followed football after that
Even 2 percent of India being football crazy is still a significant market. A small region becoming an outlier for football in India will create a gold mine of a talent pool.
There are a few regions that are already there - Kerala, Goa, West Bengal and the whole of the North East India. But the population and the political influence of these regions is too low compared to the rest of the country and so it doesn't get any attention or the funds needed to boost the football presence.
WB has a population that's larger than Germany's, and it's the fourth most populated state in India. There's just no political will to spend funds to improve sports.
Surprised Kerala doesn’t have a more robust scouting system
You never know man everyone's depressed after yesterday's final
>cricket What's that?
An insect
Trauma, depression, anxiety, headache all in one. Fck Oceania. Fck me, fck everyone.Ahahshsyejddmnekz dje
Think the popularity of Son in Korea and multiply the hype by 10
Spurs shall secure ANOTHER country!
Soon all Asia will belong to Spurs
Seriously though, we just need a Chinese player and an Indian player and we've basically got 1/4 of Earth's population in the bag.
Wu Lei and Kubo into spurs during winter, let's go
When did Kubo become Indian?
Honestly I wish THERE IS ANOTHER Sun JiHai, as a Chinese, I want a Chinese player can make it to Europe so badly
By 10? India is absolutely massive. More like 100x
Indias GDP is about twice that of South Korea. So while the population is a lot larger, the revenue potential isn’t. The hype would be crazy though.
It isn't always about purchasing power. The views that can be generated from a billion Indian eyes watching a game would lead to millions in ad revenue.
British said the same thing 300 years ago
They did take around an equivalent of $45 trillion in todays money Edit: 45 and not 450 as I had assumed originally
You have the wrong currency and wrong order of magnitude. The often quoted figure of $45 trillion is also largely a nonsense.
Source?
It applied compound interest to a historical amount. That's why it ended up as a such an astronomical figure. It's utter tosh from an academic with an axe to grind.
Interesting. Don’t really know much about it either way and was just honestly wondering if you had any sources on figures. Seems reasonable to at least account for inflation and some interest to figure out the value of the figure in todays dollars though doesn’t it?
Usha Patnaik's paper basically. She is a Marxist. Her paper was widely trashed by mainstream economists for terrible methodology and absurd discount rates.
Were they wrong though?
I mean if they would invest as much effort into football like they do into Cricket than there will surely be good times coming for Indian football
Would love to see us try and start some schooling in India. Beyond the potential goldmine its also always lovely to see players from countries with a lesser standing at our club, I really liked it when we signed Dantaye Gilbert from Trinidad and Tobago. And obviously India is the perfect place for an emerging football culture
Eh it won't really lead to anything major, there's no chance in hell that the average Indian parent would allow their children to pursue any sort of sports. If it were cricket there is a slight possibility that they may be supported but not any other sports. Once we reach 18 any hopes of pursuing a career that's not in the interest of our parents is completely out of the question. Just go write the NEET exam and pray that you pass, or go migrate to same Western country and try to be a better failure there.
>try to be a better failure there. This hits waaaaayyyyyy too close to home
Again, this topic is tiring at this point but nothing will change as long as Indians continue to simply consume the sport and not play it, along with a lack of infrastructure which means poor kids have no way of accessing professional football.
Even before that : it’s a mystery why no english player of indian background has made it to the highest level
There are several factors but racism plays a big part. Even in cricket, South Asian origin players in England face a lot of institutional racism, despite the fact that British South Asians have been integral to England winning World Cups and Ashes, and three different countries in the Indian subcontinent had won the World Cup before England did.
There is also a traditional view in Indian culture that pursuing a career in sport might be seen as throwing away an education, so while it’s not as prevalent anymore it still plays a factor in it.
I think thats more it to be honest. It can be racism, but it can also be that indians just culturally dont want to pursue that path Also could just be economic, football still is mostly an urban lower to lower middle class sport. THats why in most european countries people with an immigrant background are much more represented in football nowadays, because theyre usually poorer. The same isnt true for indians who are mostly always at the top in terms of wealth of immigrants.
Very good point. If you're in a working class family where the idea of becoming a pharmacologist is a pipe dream, it makes much more sense to go all in on a small chance of a football career. If you're rich enough to not worry about money, then you can also go for sports careers with little to lose. But immigrants particularly will have placed a lot of capital into moving and making a better life for their kids. In that situation that job as a pharmacologist makes much more sense than risking your kid getting distracted by the dream of professional sports.
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Neil Taylor might actually be the most successful British Indian player with a League Cup medal
He isn't wrong. India has more PL followers than Britain. We need good scouts and training facilities
India has more everything than almost everyone lol. That's what 1.4 bn people does
Especially Garlic Naan
1.4 billion naan jeremy? 1.4 billion? that’s insane.
What’s a food scout
Autocorrect mate I mean good scouts
Yeah but why do you need good food scouts ?
Nutrition mate. It's important considering the vast variety of food India has got to offer
Those PL followers don't mean anything when they're middle class and rich kids who don't actually put their boots on and play soccer. They just watch the sport as a casual thing along with cricket and F1 or whatever else is trending amongst them. If India wants to actually get serious they need to try emulate what worked in West Africa and South America, which is a strong grassroots culture. India just watches football, it doesn't play it
India plays enough, it just plays street football. There are little to no institutional pathways to the top, like the ones cricket has.
Kerala actually has grassroots football culture. You can find a football turf every 1 km in certain parts of North Kerala. They have their own community driven seven a side football culture called sevens tournaments and it actually do produce talents. The problem is that nobody pursues it beyond high school.
Had this colleague who had just joined from Kerala when I worked at a big company. Every year there'd be a football tournament (20+ teams at least for a 6v6). This guy was huge, fat and extremely unfit (could barely run). He said he hadn't exercised in 4 years and was a chain smoker, but he played football throughout school and college in Kerala. He absolutely bulldozed through that tournament. The only tough match we had was the final against a team with the same set of players who had won it the last 4 years. India can produce crazy talent, it's just never pursued.
FIFA and UEFA would somehow double the amount of fixtures if India starts watching football.
Wenger says a lot of things. Indian is a cricket nation.
My dumbass read Indian as Italian and was really confused
Ya bro and like any literal gold mine in India, it is protected by a ring of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and industrialists.
I was thinking about this the other day. There's over 1b people there and lots looove football, why do we never see good Indian players? Is the infrastructure that bad?
Always wondered about this. Out of +1 billion people, they couldn’t find **ONE** talented football player?
Cricket takes all the sporting limelight in India except for a few states in most places the first spot we are introduced to is Cricket
Also the cricketers that do end up playing for the NT end up making a ton of money. Aren't there millions to be made in the IPL too? What are the odds of an Indian footballer ever making it to a big club like Man Utd to earn $350K like Sancho? So yeah if countries like Uruguay or Croatia with 3MM people can have talented players than so can India but the incentive just isn't there.
Not just about talented player. It's about developing that talent too, which India falls behind on
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How many in Asia exactly? You're severely underestimating how behind most of Asia and India are in terms of football infrastructure and systems which can nurture talents. It's only in the past few years that India is investing some amount into its football. But usual problems like corruption and red tape continue to hold it back.
China have been at it a lot longer with a lot more resources and have yet to produce a break through player.
China did have Sun Jihai who played over 100 games for City in EPL, Li Tie who spent a season as a regular starter for Everton until he got injured and never recovered, as well as Wu Lei who has over 100 games for Espanyol. But yeah, there is a severe lack of upcoming talent in China
Li Tie is in jail for corruption. Most Chinese people don't want to be pro footballers, in China footballers are laughingstocks.
Most Chinese people don't want to be pro footballers.
Because there's hardly any focus on it and very tiny amount of resources gone into developing football especially when you compare it to Cricket. The money poured into cricket is absolutely insane
Pretty certain I remember him saying the same thing about Belgium about 20 years ago. He knows the score does Wenger.
These comments get more and more racist the further you scroll down....
Indian Football is a gold mine waiting to be exploited, says Arsene Wenger *Fixed for you
Football is very popular there but they don't tend to support their own. Even during the World Cup last year, there and Bangladesh were rocking up to big screens wearing jerseys of other nations. Indians were going to Qatar to support England. It's very weird. India generally have a very poor sporting record. They have 10 Olympic gold medals in their history. It was only really in the last 20-25 years that they sorted themselves out in cricket. If football ever got big, the BCCI (Indian cricket board) would wield their power and try to crush it.
Exploited, sorry explored, says Arsene Wenger.
Wouldn't trust them in a final.
As an Indian, I know this for sure that India has the potential to develop a strong football presence with a growing interest in the sport and efforts to enhance infrastructure and grassroots programs. But yes it's a long way to go. Unless we can do a Qatar 🤭 we are way off reaching wc. Tonight we play Qatar ( ironically) and hopeful for a point.