Promising start to Indian football awards

The inaugural awards gala of Football Players Association of India (FPAI), held in Kolkata earlier this week, certainly looks a step in the right direction to ‘package' the game better back home.

While it may still take time for them to match the razzmatazz of some of the leading cricketing awards — it was a good start by all accounts.

While the awards for excellence announced by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) may still be considered to be the most definitive one, but one cannot remember the federation making any efforts to ‘dress' up the occasion and derive some mileage out of it.

The nominations would, almost inevitably, be part of the agenda of a working committee meeting somewhere about which nobody really cared thereafter.

And this is where the FPAI would certainly score some brownie points. Not only did they care to assemble some of the legends of Indian football such as Sailen Manna and P.K. Banerjee on the stage — there were some breathtaking football juggling shows by professionals from abroad while the likes of Baichung Bhutia and Sunil Chhetri also shook a leg to bring the audience to their feet.

Nominated

While young international Chhetri was nominated the Best Indian and Best Fans' Choice Players award, Churchill Brothers striker Onyeka Okolie Odafa walked away with the Best Foreign Footballer. David Booth, who coached Mumbai FC in 2008-09 season, won the Best Coach while there was a category for Best Young Player as well.

It must have been quite a poignant moment when Chhetri received his award from Manna — the man who had led India in 1948 Olympics — in the presence of ‘PK' and Bhutia on the stage as it represented as many as four generations of Indian football.

Bhutia, the current captain of Indian team and on the last legs of his career in mid ‘30s, had been quite clearly the brain behind the entire show.

It was he who founded the FPAI some three years back after being inspired by such a body in England and he would stay miles ahead of his peers just for his efforts to rid the game in India of its so-called chips-in-the-shoulder attitude.

Calling the FPAI as an association to bring all the footballers together, he is already planning to add more categories in the awards from next year. There is only one word of caution for him — players' bodies, in whichever sport one looks at — have had very short shelf lives in India so far. One hopes this one will prove to be an exception!