Sports - India & Indians

[crazywithmath]

You are in big denial mode here.

Here are the GDP per capita figures for the countries you mentioned:

• Saudi Arabia: Approximately $28,895.
• United Arab Emirates (UAE): Around $52,977.
• Oman: About $23,295.

They have money that's why they have invested in Sports league.

I do not think you are getting my points. I am not asking the gormint to pump 1 billion into football infrastructure right now - heck, our annual sports budget is < 4000 crore. Grow the economy and get better at every sport is all I am advocating for. It does not make sense for us to spend this much on a sport where even after pouring so much resources these middle eastern nations have achieved very moderate success in global football.

With that being said, sporting success is directly proportional to the amount of money you are pumping into the infrastructure. A direct per capita comparison does not make much sense. We do not do per capita calculations while calculating budgets, do we?

You don't need Miracles but performance. How else Morocco suddenly reached Football WC Semifinal out of nowhere?

Morocco is located in North Africa - a treasure trove of talents where European scouts are very active. Their talents get scouted at a very young age and shipped to Europe at some residential academy. The more successful guys end up representing European nations and the rest go back to representing their home country.

Also, they strategically made use of players with Moroccan heritage; more than half their starting XI were born abroad. We do not have dual citizenship in india, so you cannot make use of hired guns.

 

[Vinash]

UAE, Saudi, Qatar, Oman are tiny economies. They do not have the scale like us. We are not doing a per capita comparison here. If you look at hockey, the amount of money we pump into the infrastructure and grassroots is on par with the likes of Germany, Australia, Belgiul and the Netherlands. And it shows up in the results. Not the case in football.



You cannot have 'miracles' in football. Not in 2025, anyway. It is the most competitive sport in the world for a reason.



Because the AIFF (the Indian FA) was forced to appoint a Croatian fraud as the NT manager (who came cheap) owing to tight budgets and in turn ignored the applications from a number of accomplished managers like Sven Goan Ericsson, Albert Roca, Sam Allardyce and Alberto Zaccerini. Stephen, the old manager, had a history of performing with lower ranked nations and nearly took us to the Asian Cup knockouts (if not for a 91st minute penalty in our final group game against Bahrain) - with him gone all of that progress was flushed down the gutter.

So yeah, we are again back to the money problems.

Remember how Athletico Madrid competed so well against Real Madrid and Barcelona for multiple years in the last decade even though their resources were a fraction of them?

When you don't have the $$$$, you must ensure that the coaching and support system is extremely efficient and top notch like Diego Simeone did for Athleti.

You are admitting yourself that India's Football management screwed up. It's better to fix it than keep asking for more $$$$. Indian Football needs to realise that nobody is going to pour $$$$ into them till they draw eyeballs.

 

[crazywithmath]

Remember how Athletico Madrid competed so well against Real Madrid and Barcelona for multiple years in the last decade even though their resources were a fraction of them?

When you don't have the $$$$, you must ensure that the coaching and support system is extremely efficient and top notch like Diego Simeone did for Athleti.

You are admitting yourself that India's Football management screwed up. It's better to fix it than keep asking for more $$$$. Indian Football needs to realise that nobody is going to pour $$$$ into them till they draw eyeballs.

Argentina has one of the most corrupt managements in world football right now. Their FA is borderline bankrupt and has stopped relegations in their top tier because of powerful mafia bosses and oligarchs who do not want to have their hometown clubs relegated to the 2nd tier. Did it stop them from winning the world cup?

Management is not the issue here - a number of successful footballing nations have very corrupt bodies. The AIFF operates on a paltry budget of about 130 crore - how much can they even steal? The last time the CAG ran an audit, they found financial mismatch worth about 80 lakhs - spread over a 5 year period! If you want to look at terribly run FAs, look at Spain, look at Brazil, look at Argentina, look at Portugal - where billions are at stake!

If you want to run an efficient programme get the money flowing. Why are Hockey India and Athletics Federation so efficiently run? Because the gormint pours big amounts into them and keep the federations under strict control.

Either way, as I explained above, it does not make economic sense to spend too much public money on our footballing system yet. It is better to focus elsewhere. So this sorry state of affairs will likely continue.

Coming to Atleti, they had a legendary manager at helm (also, the most expensive football manager ever) who knew how to give back in kind when facing bigger teams - just like our previous NT manager Stephen Constantine who had us scoring for fun, demolishing Thailand and dominating middle eastern teams at their own backyard.

But Atleti's exploits came at a cost, their counter attacking style became too predictable. They did not manage to win the Champions League even in their golden years (despite featuring in two finals) and won a grand total of 1 La Liga title in that period and that too came because of a terrible refereeing decision. Mind it, this was in a period when Real and Barca were winning titles for fun. Safe to say, money won in the end.

 

[Vinash]

Argentina has one of the most corrupt managements in world football right now. Their FA is borderline bankrupt and has stopped relegations in their top tier because of powerful mafia bosses and oligarchs who do not want to have their hometown clubs relegated to the 2nd tier. Did it stop them from winning the world cup?

Management is not the issue here - a number of successful footballing nations have very corrupt bodies. The AIFF operates on a paltry budget of about 130 crore - how much can they even steal? The last time the CAG ran an audit, they found financial mismatch worth about 80 lakhs - spread over a 5 year period! If you want to look at terribly run FAs, look at Spain, look at Brazil, look at Argentina, look at Portugal - where billions are at stake!

If you want to run an efficient programme get the money flowing. Why are Hockey India and Athletics Federation so efficiently run? Because the gormint pours big amounts into them and keep the federations under strict control.

Either way, as I explained above, it does not make economic sense to spend too much public money on our footballing system yet. It is better to focus elsewhere. So this sorry state of affairs will likely continue.

Coming to Atleti, they had a legendary manager at helm (also, the most expensive football manager ever) who knew how to give back in kind when facing bigger teams - just like our previous NT manager Stephen Constantine who had us scoring for fun, demolishing Thailand and dominating middle eastern teams at their own backyard.

But Atleti's exploits came at a cost, their counter attacking style became too predictable. They did not manage to win the Champions League even in their golden years (despite featuring in two finals) and won a grand total of 1 La Liga title in that period and that too came because of a terrible refereeing decision. Mind it, this was in a period when Real and Barca were winning titles for fun. Safe to say, money won in the end.

Argentina is mad about Football unlike India.

They can get away with even corrupt management because they are most likely harvesting 100% of their population for talent unlike India where even 5% of the population doesn't really take Football seriously.

Nobody is saying it's fair, but I just don't see any $$$ coming into Indian Football until they actually achieve something of worth.

 

[sameer]

We dont have oil money to spend billions or even millions on these sports where they dont perform any good.
Club football has more history in India then Cricket and we should have had decent bench by now. But our players fails to beat few poor nations too which operates on much less budget than us.

Cricket became beast on its own with much less budget and there was time when they had to organize concerts to fund their players but that did not deter the Cricketing talent in the nation and with the rise of talent, we went on to reach where we are now in world Cricket.

Don't expect Govt to fund each and every game when you don't get anything in return.

Most big sports are run by their own governing bodies which are mostly not under Govt with exception of Non-democratic nations like in Middle east and China.

ISL is running for over a decade now and has provided more than decent pay to the local footballers but still we don't see a single player of global caliber.​

We lost to Afghanistan and Syria last year. Losing to these two war torn hellholes is just bad. Syria afaik is even banned from playing at home stadium. TBH, I don't think if it's purely a money issue at this point. We must be lacking something else.

We should probably open up our leagues to more foreign competition, bringing in some African players and sending our own players to other leagues. We got very content playing within ourselves and just our neighbours. Mental toughness also seems to be lacking.

 

[SKC]

Morocco is located in North Africa - a treasure trove of talents where European scouts are very active. Their talents get scouted at a very young age and shipped to Europe at some residential academy. The more successful guys end up representing European nations and the rest go back to representing their home country.

Also, they strategically made use of players with Moroccan heritage; more than half their starting XI were born abroad. We do not have dual citizenship in india, so you cannot make use of hired guns.

They have talent thats why they are scouted by European clubs. We are producing substandard talent which fails to make it to even Tier-3 clubs in Europeans leagues.

if you produce a world class talent then money will come automatically. You want money to come first and then expecting talent to grow.​

 

[pixxel]

We dont have oil money to spend billions or even millions on these sports where they dont perform any good.
Club football has more history in India then Cricket and we should have had decent bench by now. But our players fails to beat few poor nations too which operates on much less budget than us.

Cricket became beast on its own with much less budget and there was time when they had to organize concerts to fund their players but that did not deter the Cricketing talent in the nation and with the rise of talent, we went on to reach where we are now in world Cricket.

Don't expect Govt to fund each and every game when you don't get anything in return.

Most big sports are run by their own governing bodies which are mostly not under Govt with exception of Non-democratic nations like in Middle east and China.

ISL is running for over a decade now and has provided more than decent pay to the local footballers but still we don't see a single player of global caliber.​

If many other nations really took cricket half as seriously as us,we would lose at that too. So, let's not lie we indians are suffering malnutrition. Our huge population with thin resources leaves us at a growth disadvantage( also we are wasting our resources on illegal kanglu scum freeloaders).

 

[crazywithmath]

Nobody is saying it's fair, but I just don't see any $$$ coming into Indian Football until they actually achieve something of worth.

Then it is a chicken and egg problem. You won't have success in football without investments. Not possible in 2025.

They have talent thats why they are scouted by European clubs. We are producing substandard talent which fails to make it to even Tier-3 clubs in Europeans leagues.​

I do not think it is true. They used to say this same thing about combat sports. Then money started flowing into wrestling and amateur boxing and now the results have started showing up.

European scouts do not venture into Asia because they have no need to when a lot of talents can be unearthed in Europe and North/Central Africa. Even in Japan and Korea, the players are developed by their domestic academies - only then do they transition to Europe.

if you produce a world class talent then money will come automatically. You want money to come first and then expecting talent to grow.​

Again, chicken and egg problem.

This is a new state-of-the-art football facility the Korean FA is setting up;


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=88nWMhURPgc&pp=ygUeS29yZWEgbmF0aW9uYWwgZm9vdGJhbGwgY2VudHJl

This is a short documentary on the insanely competitive high school football structure of Japan (funded and sponsored by the Japanese gormints) - with dedicated football schools (ie, schools that are meant for nurturing young footballers with little focus on studies);


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=hhmQRzGMAFc&pp=ygUpamFwYW5lc2UgaGlnaCBzY2hvb2wgZm9vdGJhbGwgZG9jdW1lbnRhcnnSBwkJTwkBhyohjO8%3D

How on earth can someone expect random Indian guys to take these folks head on and grab global headlines? When some random Japanese/Korean high school boys are receiving help from dedicated sports scientists and statisticians?

For whatever it is worth, we have done well at u17 Asian level in recent years, even reached the Quarter Finals in 2018. Did not matter. Nobody came to pick up those talents. It does not happen this way.

Did they stop investing when Indian hockey teams were struggling a decade and a half back? No, they increased it. And now you have back to back medals in Olympics.

Most Olympic sports, football especially, are insanely competitive. Govts across the world view it as an economic growth engine. 1983 cricket world style miracles are not possible anymore. Heck, even in 1983, it would not have been possible in a more competitive sporting discipline - not even 8 nations took cricket seriously in 1983.

We lost to Afghanistan and Syria last year. Losing to these two war torn hellholes is just bad. Syria afaik is even banned from playing at home stadium. TBH, I don't think if it's purely a money issue at this point. We must be lacking something else.

Syria routinely fields naturalized players - just like Morocco. Our laws do not permit dual citizenship else even we could have fielded some foreigners and achieved some short term success.

Also, Syria are considered a heavyweight in Asian football. They nearly qualified for 2018 World Cup. Even Japan, Korea and Australia struggle against them - losing to them by a goal or two cannot be compared with a defeat to Afghanistan (even though the Afghans also field naturalized players).

We should probably open up our leagues to more foreign competition, bringing in some African players and sending our own players to other leagues. We got very content playing within ourselves and just our neighbours. Mental toughness also seems to be lacking.

Why will someone accept Indian players tho? What is in it for them? The chinese FA tried it a few years back, nobody let them in. Either the players are good and they ink a professional contract or they stay in the domestic league - there is not a third option.

Here in India, only Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Sandesh Jhingan managed to bag contracts with top tier European clubs. Nobody else has succeded so far.

 

[crazywithmath]

You folks do not understand the reason why we went on to become literal nobodies, from nearly eliminating fucking France from the Olympics to finishing 4th at the 1956 Olympics to qualifying for a freakin' World Cup on merit to bagging multiple gold and silver medals at Asian Games and finishing runners-up at the Asian Cup or why us demolishing Japan and Korea used to be the norm but it is the other way around now.

We kept up this dominance till the '70s. But at that point, the Asian tigers (Japan, Korea) and the oil rich middle eastern nations (Kuwait, Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman et al) joined the fun and started developing dedicated football programmes. Japan and Korea introduced professional leagues. The middle eastern nations naturalized foreign born players and brought managers from all across the world. Corporate money started flowing in. MMCs started purchasing football clubs - lured in by low interests and state backed incentives.

And when all these developments were taking shape we were still a closed socialist economy with negligible economic growth. There was no economic boom in India. The govt could barely feed the common people - let alone bothering to invest in sports. Nobody had that kind of money in India. And predictably, we lost out - from the '80s onward. Myanmar/Burma once a continental powerhouse, lost out in a similar fashion and have fallen even below us since.

Something similar happend to our hockey NTs. Except that sustained govt and corporate backings have reversed the trend in recent years and we have started winning again. Football is way way more competitive than hockey, it is not easy to reverse things so easily here.