India notebook - Indian football faces drastic changes

Indian football is in for drastic changes if the agreement between the All India Football Federation and the Indian Premier Football Association reached last week is any guide.
One of the points agreed upon at the meeting which put the National Football League back on the rails related to the status of the players involved in inter-club transfers.

According to the understanding Indian players, a big percentage of those involved in the NFL, would automatically become professionals by February 15 next year. This will mean that most of the Indian players will have to remove the mask of amateurs they have been wearing for years together while enjoying the benefits both as amateurs and professionals.

According to Vijay Mallya who spearheaded the IPFA movement against the Federation, the rational behind the decision was that NFL players contracted to clubs could now expect to be paid a transfer fee from the club recruiting the professionals during the inter-club transfers. This rule will apply only as long as a player is under contract to a particular club.

Also discussed at the meeting was a proposal by the IPFA to improve the general standard with special stress on the promotion of the game at the junior level and give a boost to womens football. The IPFA has said that each of its member club was ready to allocate time and money for building under-19 and women's football teams.

Mohun Bagan Club general secretary Anjan Mitra and the management of the East Bengal team went a step further and said that they will recruit foreign women footballers in time for participation in the IFA women's league in Calcutta.

Meanwhile the Federation is having difficulty in finding a sponsor for the NFL starting in Delhi later this week. The delay in starting the league has not helped matters.
The trouble between the federation and the IPFA has put off Coca Cola, who had been the title sponsors for the last two editions. Under the circumstances, the federation is now banking heavily on offering the telecast rights to the highest bidder.

"The AIFF reportedly owes around Rs 3 crore to Doordarshan and according to Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, it has given another multi-crore bid so far. Nothing however has been finalised.
The heartening news, however, is that there is no dearth of takers for the terrestrial rights. The involvement of heavyweights like Vijay Mallya, Samir Thapar, Anand Mahindra and Shivanand Salgaocar have already enthused Sony Max and Zee TV while a surprise customer at the 11th hour is ESPN-Star Sports.

Though the differences between the IPFA and the AIFF appear to have been resolved to the satisfaction of both, one pertinent question remains.
With both the parties wanting to improve the overall conduct of the league where was the need to delay the start of the programme? The differences could have been resolved even during the league.

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The final stage of the National Hockey Championship, now underway in Jammu, has had an eventful run so far with the preliminaries being held in seven centres Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Imphal, Rampur and Jammu.

This is the first time that the tournament has been split in so many division. The choice of venues was guided by the need to spread the message as far as possible and also the fact that all these centres had astro turf facilities.

The main centre, Jammu, however has had to bear the brunt of the expenses, financing the whole tournament, even when held in different centres from a pre-championship budget of Rs6.5 million.
Because of the importance of the tournament and the fact that it was only the second time in the history of the game that the championship was being held in Jammu, the state government has put all its resources at the disposal of the organizers.

In addition, the J&K Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank and Bharat Hotels have come forward with sponsorships. The championship itself has been dominated expectedly by institutional teams which have naturally comandeered most of the talent available.

But even then the defeat of Mumbai, twice national champions, and MP, among others in the preliminary rounds, has come as a shock. The entry into the final phase by Jammu and Kashmir has been a pleasant surprise. Football and not hockey is the popular game in the state.

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The decision of Leander Paes to play in a challenge tournament in Costa Rica instead of practicing with Mahesh Bhupathi in the United States ahead of the ATP World Doubles Championship in Bangalore has come as a shock to the organizers.

Paes, it is understood, will play in singles in Costa Rica with the tournament starting next Monday and that hardly gives him enough scope for practice with Mahesh Bhupathi, who is in the United States for a scheduled 10-day practice stint.

Considering the fact that Paes and Bhupathi have been given a wild-card entry thank to the efforts of the organizers, one would have thought that Paes would give priority to getting ready for the big event instead of wasting his time in a minor tournament.

And he and Bhupathi do need to practice together to get back to the form which made them the No 1 doubles pair in the world last year.