Is India in for one of the most dramatic changes to its sport, social and cultural history ? Football is coming!
Cricket has dominated India for many many years with ever piece of spare land becoming a cricket square, every young child learning to play and the National Team continuing to have success at the world level. For many years the Indian cricket authorities have had to do very little to promote their game, encourage people to take up the sport, gain television exposure and sponsorship. Indeed the introduction of the Indian Premier League has made their job even easier.
All this being said, over the past few years there has been a growing number of people playing and following football. The English Premier League has been a major part of this together with the extended television coverage exposing more and more people to the game.
Although there has been the Indian Premier League running for a few years it has not made much impact on the sporting world in India as there are no real ‘names’ yet in the game and as such no role models for the young players to try and emulate.
Enter the Super League. The investment into a new league placing teams geographically and strategically around the country is the start of a new venture. The new teams have had major investments into them to be able to attract real ‘names’ into the league including Robert Pires, Allesandro del Piero, Freddie Ljungberg, Nicolas Anelka, and David Trezegue to name a few. These players will become real stars in the Indian sub-continent and will help to lay the foundations for future generations of young footballers throughout the country.
If these names were not enough to get the publicity machines rolling behind the league then the involvement of Cricketing Super Legend Sachin Tendulkar should just do the trick. Not only is he involved in the league he is the owner of the Kerela Blasters team. If Sachin is going to follow football every self-respecting Indian Cricketer will follow too, which will give a huge boost to the league and the interest in it.
If the organisers, players and marketing people can do their magic then a major culture shift is on the horizon. It may have taken many years for cricket to become the number one sport and to dominate the whole country. I think it will be take a fraction of that time for football to have the same impact and if this first league is as successful as the first ever Indian Premier League in cricket it wouldn’t surprise me to see football as the number one participation sport in India within 5 years and then those people involved in the management, promotion and development of cricket will need to work harder than ever before. Realistically they need to start now as the football juggernaut is on its way and as we all know when that things starts rolling it is almost impossible to stop and the second largest nation on earth will be hooked!
Adrian Rattenbury – Sports Consultant
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