Game of Free Fall

AS DUSK CLOUDED over the Central Stadium in Hisor, Tajikistan, on September 1, 11 men donning jerseys the colour of the setting sun dragged their feet solemnly across the turf, offering limp handshakes to the victorious Iranians. And just like that, gloom once again descended upon the state of Indian football. The3-0 loss had ended the shortest spell of respite from a few days earlier, when India had beaten hosts Tajikistan 2-1 in their opening fixture of the ongoing Central Asian Football Association (CAFA) Nations Cup. That win, if one must know, was only India’s second victory in nearly 20 international fixtures, dating back to November 2023, which was over 21 months ago.

In that period, the country’s football team had seen three different coaches: the exit of Croatian Igor Štimac, the sign- ing and resignation of Manolo Márquez from Spain, followed by the most recent appointment of the homegrown Khalid Jamil. It was Jamil, on his very first day at the helm, who stopped the long and dry spell on August 29 against Tajikistan, giving India its first overseas win in nearly two years. But a player who was not part of Jamil’s plans in that win or the subsequent loss to Iran was Sunil Chhetri, one of the greatest footballers produced by this country and still very much part of the conver- sation a whole year after retiring for the first time.

The fact that Chhetri, now 41, had to return from retired life earlier this year tells you all that you need to know about the state of flux Indian football finds itself in. With no pre-existing or upcoming striker impressing India’s previous coach Márquez during the slew of losses he was a part of in his tenure with the national team, the Spaniard openly coaxed Chhetri out of retirement, one that he had taken with much fanfare in early 2024 at the end of an incrediblecareerthathadseen94internationalgoals,behindonly Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi among active players. So, he dragged himself back in March this year against the Maldives and promptly scored his 95th goal for India in his return game, which was the team’s first and last win of Márquez’s regime.

Then, once Jamil took over, Chhetri found himself out of the 35-man probables-list for the CAFA Cup, followed by his absence from the final squad as well. The team management’s line was that Chhetri’s services did not make sense for a low-key tournament such as the CAFA Nations, but the reason for his unavailability was later changed to that of injury during Jamil’s first press conference. Contrasting answers for a player’s omission

Sunil Chhetri in action against Syria in Al Khor, Qatar, January 23, 2024 usually do not bode well for said player, but Chhetri has far larger reasons to be distressed about an uncertain future, one that has little to do with his absence from the national team squad. For this uncertainty affects all of Indian football itself.

Success or its lack for any national team around the world can easily be attributed to as well as gauged by the immediate health of the country’s premier football league. India’s top-flight league, the Indian Super League(ISL), now lies paralysed and indefinitely suspended during a month (September) when the new season should ideally have begun. Why? Because of differences in the current rights agreement between the All India Football Federation(AIFF), the sport’s apex body in the country, and its commercial partner, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), the company that runs ISL. The matter is now in the Supreme Court.

The logjam goes as follows: the existing Master Rights Agreement (MRA) states that FSDL has to pay AIFF `50 crore annually for running ISL. This made financial sense to FSDL when ISL first began in 2014, where amidst much fanfare and hope a private football league began in India on the lines of cricket’s Indian Premier League, then played over a couple of months and sprinkled with global football legends in the evening of their storied careers, such as these World Cup winners: Italy’s Alessandro Del Piero and Marco Materazzi, Spain’s Luis Garcia and Brazil’s Roberto Car- los. A decade on, ISL is altogether bereft of international heavy- weights and since becoming India’s premier division in 2019, the season stretches on for several months, as any real league should.

But while ISL initially promised to inspire great fan-following in the metros, most league games played outside of India’s traditional football hotbeds of Kerala, Goa and West Bengal receive, at best, a sprinkle of spectators. The Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), on the other hand, has fast become Indian television’s second-most watched sport event after cricket, even as the broadcast of several state-level cricket leagues has further left ISL in its wake. All these factors contributed to FSDL not renewing the MRA, which ex- pires on December 8, and hence the non-start of the new season.

While all of this chaos has the fan of Indian football worried, the professionals entrenched within the ecosystem are devas- tated. Enough for Chhetri, who, despite being in the evening of his club career and therefore with little skin left in the game, still took to X to say: “The current situation that Indian football finds itself in, is very concerning. I’ve received a flurry of texts from players, staff members, physios, masseurs—not just from my club, but from other clubs as well. Everybody in the Indian football ecosystem is worried, hurt, scared about the uncertainty we are faced with.”

Those poignant words were written in July. Little has changed since.

This is not all that is plaguing India’s football body, for AIFF is embattled on several fronts. With the FSDL matter in court, the world football governing body, FIFA, as well as the continental body, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), has threatened an international ban on India, issuing a stern ultimatum to AIFF that it ought to adopt a new constitution by October 30 or risk suspension. This is not the first time FIFA was forced to take such a measure for, in 2022, they had temporarily suspended India, which meant that the national team as well as the country’s top- flight clubs were banned from international competitions.

That fiasco had its ill-effects on return to the international fold, for their world rankings plummeted from just within the top-100 to its current free-falling position of 133. So, Indian football is run by a body that risks being suspended once again from the international game, currently without an active top-flight league for the 2025-26 season, even as its national team—one that has never played in a FIFA World Cup and looking ever-so-unlikely to qualify for one in the near future, despite the tournament increasing its field from 32 nations to 48 from the upcoming edition in 2026—continues to chalk up the loss count.

When everything seems so bleak, all one can do is hope. And Chhetri has plenty of it, despite being keenly aware of all the minefields in Indian football. Bookending the social media post which began with him stating that everybody is worried, hurt and scared of the uncertainty, he said: “I may not have all the answers, but my message to all those involved with Indian football… please stay calm. We’ll ride this storm together. Stick together and look out for each other… Football has to resume soon. It will.”

 

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