Indian Football: back on the rise

[THREAD]

i apologise in advance for the length of this thread, it’s my first one and it’s a topic i really like and i hope this is a subject that not many people would’ve heard much about

enjoy

before we start, i think it’s important to look at India as a country before delving into the football aspect of this great country. at the time of writing, India has a population of 1.353 billion that speak 23 official languages, Hindi and English are the official languages...

but there is a language that almost all Indians speak, sport. a country that is sport crazy has numerous “favourite sports” and these sports are existent in all 28 states of India. many people would agree that Cricket is the national sport of India, but there are other sports...

that Indians love to play and watch, such as Hockey, Kabaddi, Badminton and even Tennis to an extent, but there is one sport that isn’t looked up to in as high regard by Indians, Football. but why is this the case? there are a number of things to this, i’ll start with the obvious

Cricket was brought to India thanks to the British and they developed the game for young kids to play. it was a simple game to play and you could play it in alleyways instead of big fields (Indians call this form “Gully Cricket”). it was a game that everyone could play and it...

...became the national sport with greats such as Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Kapil Dev, Anil Kumble etc becoming national heroes with their exploits abroad representing the nation on the international stage. more and more young kids idolised these guys and the...

...sport grew more and more with popularity. however the sport of Football has also produced superstars but most of you have never heard of them, why? Cricket has created such a love for Indians that most other sports are put on the back-burner, but here’s a few you should know

Sunil Chhetri

the GOAT of Indian Football, Sunil Chhetri is the all time leading goalscorer in Indian Football with a total of 72 goals in 115 games making him land 11th on the all-time international goals list and 2nd in active int’l goalscorers behind only Cristiano Ronaldo

Bhaichung Bhutia

the “Sikkimese Sniper” was the torchbearer of Indian football on the international stage as he became the first Indian to sign a contract with a European club when he signed for Bury in 1999. he was the man who really set the benchmark for Chhetri and others

I.M. Vijayan

finally an Indian footballing hero, hailing from Kerala, Vijayan formed a deadly partnership with Bhutia up front for India in the late 90s and early 2000s. he won the Indian Player of the Year 3 times (93, 97, 99) becoming the first player to win it more than once.

these three players show that Indian football isn’t non-existent, and that Indian football isn’t as bad as people think. while the team has yet to play in a World Cup, they have some pedigree with 2nd place at the 1964 Asian Cup, 2x winners of the Asian Games (1951, 1962)...

7x winners of the SAFF Championship between 1993 and 2015, AFC Challenge Cup champions in 2008 and a 4th place finish at the 1956 Olympic Games in Australia. these awards then gave the Indian government the incentive to put more backing into football and this created the ISL

the Indian Super League is now India’s premier football tournament taking over from the I-League and it was set up to increase the country’s interest in football because the I-League was slowly getting reduced attendances and poor revenue due to a huge lack of interest

formed in 2014, the ISL had 8 franchises in 8 different cities. to further boost public interest, the inaugural season attracted many star players who were looking to wind down their careers, namely Robert Pires, Alessandro Del Piero, Marco Materazzi and David Trezeguet

attendances were unreal, with the 2014 average being 24,357, placing the ISL 4th in the world for highest average attendances behind only the PL, Bundesliga and LaLiga. this number then increased to 26,376 in 2015 allowing the ISL to jump ahead of LaLiga into 3rd place

however attendances started to dwindle in 2016 and 2017 as interest died down again, and teams like Mumbai City and ATK moved to smaller stadiums. the clip below was taken by @ThaForsberg when he went to Mumbai, this may explain the lack of fans

2017 saw the U-17 World Cup being held in India, which was won by England with the likes of Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Callum Hudson-Odoi showing their excellent talent. but off the field, the tournament was a huge success with it being the most attended youth World Cup and...

it had a greater total attendance than the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup which was played in and won by India. so it is clear that Indian football is on the rise, their qualification for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup was another major achievement and this rose India to 97th in the rankings

nowadays, the main focus of the AIFF (All Indian Football Federation) is youth development. the AIFF has injected more money into establishing elite youth football programs and this has attracted the attention of major clubs around the world, here are 3 notable partnerships

Atletico Madrid and ATK

the Kolkata franchise received a major boost when they came to an agreement with Atletico Madrid to become a feeder club to the Spanish giants, the club was reformed to Atlético de Kolkata and the club received many Atleti youth players to play in the ISL

Manchester City and Mumbai City

the CFG added another team to their collection when they purchased a 65% stake in Mumbai City. this was the first time a European club had purchased a majority stake in an Indian club and the aim was to expand the reach of ISL Clubs

Borussia Dortmund and Hyderabad FC

a historic partnership was made in June when Borussia Dortmund announced a long-term partnership with Hyderabad FC, with the main focus on developing youth players and advancing on coaching methods. the partnership is set to run for 5 years

with these partnerships, the future for Indian football looks bright with a league that is gaining more exposure as the years go by, attracting players who aren’t past their peak and importing players who are eager to make the league a global super power. with more investment...

who knows where India could be, potentially winning World Cups? (maybe a little bit outrageous) but maybe we could see more young Indians get the chance to play in Europe and increase the love for the beautiful game in India

i apologise for the length of that thread again. i couldn’t add a thank you tweet to it, so i’ll do it here, thank you for taking the time to read my thread, hopefully you enjoyed reading it and it gave you some idea of what state Indian football is at

likes & rt’s appreciated

these 4 videos are really good if you want to know more about the history of Indian Football, and the 2 football-mad states

these links are really useful if you want to know more about the partnerships i talked about:
HYD: https://sports.ndtv.com/indian-super-league/hyderabad-fc-announce-two-year-partnership-with-borussia-dortmund-2282789

MCFC: https://www.livemint.com/sports/football-news/manchester-city-owners-buy-majority-stake-in-mumbai-city-fc-11574952403127.html

ATK: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/atletico-madrid/story/3169392/atletico-madrid-end-link-up-with-atletico-kolkata-over-youth-differences