Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.
After taking their plea to such high offices as the Indian government and FIFA, the Indian footballers may have realised that the belated start of the Indian Super League (ISL) season – planned for next month – may not be an unmixed blessing.
The financial and commercial realities that have come into play have resulted in franchises asking them to take a pay cut for the league to stay viable.
The league was supposed to get underway in September but was in a limbo due to the expiry of the commercial rights deal between the All India Football Federation (AIFF) and Reliance’s Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) on December 8. That a country with ambitions to host the Summer Olympics after a decade can’t even get a top division in operation wasn’t great for the optics. Something had to be done, sooner or later, and everyone, including the players, had to pay a price to get the show on the road.
With fewer matches and less revenue in a truncated season, several franchises have asked players to take pay cuts of up to 25 percent.
Now, a drop in wages is never pleasant. Many organisations ask employees to make some financial sacrifices to tide over difficult circumstances, be it an economic downturn or the Covid crisis. As far as ‘top’ Indian footballers are concerned, the popular perception is that they are overpaid in relation to their performance on the pitch. What else could explain India failing to stay in contention for a 24-team Asian Cup which will feature more than half of the membership of the continental confederation, and its FIFA ranking in freefall. But with a dearth of top-level home-grown talent and a limit on the number of foreigners on the roster and the pitch, the best in the country command wages of more than a crore a year, amounts which they would be unlikely to get if they plied their trade overseas.
That may be the reason why, amidst all the angst expressed by the players throughout the impasse, there were hardly any reports of any players seeking pastures abroad even when the likes of goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu have had taste of club football in Europe. Even when franchises tried to reduce their wage bill in the absence of any progress regarding the resumption of action, all one got were expressions of helplessness and appeals to various agencies above them.
When Parth Jindal, whose JSW Sports owns Bengaluru FC, tells The Indian Express that part of the problem could be that “the players started getting too much money, and they lack motivation,” his statement may not be totally devoid of merit.
Different priorities
The ISL franchises, like those in the Indian Premier League (IPL), while caring for the game and on-field results, always have the balance sheet at the back of their minds. They can endure heavy losses for some time, but not too long. We have seen IPL franchises cutting their ties with the league when the venture became unviable. Even recently, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the defending champions, were said to be looking for an exit as the owners didn’t see it as part of the group going forward.
There’s a difference between a club and a franchise. The former is an organic entity, often born when a few like-minded individuals come together for a common cause. They may grow over a period of time and become big franchises and behemoths, but are identified with their roots, identity or the region they represent.
Franchises, on the other hand, are born big and are corporate in nature. They work as a business from the start with an eagle eye on the bottom line. Operating a sports team may be part of their corporate social responsibility, but they can decide to walk away if they don’t get the intended outcome. That would be unthinkable for a Manchester United or a Liverpool, even if they incur heavy losses.
However, running any sport in the country should be the mandate of the National Sport Federation recognised by the government and the corresponding world body, not any private entity – even if it’s owned by one of the biggest conglomerates in the world – or franchises.
If the AIFF can’t conduct a regular football league – at all levels – and has to offload its responsibility to a corporation, in return for a sum of money, then it has to qualify as a pinnacle of inefficiency.
One doesn’t need a league to be big, glitzy and glamorous. One has to learn to walk before one can run. India has to get the nut and bolts right and not get blinded by bright lights. Just ensure matches are held at regular times with all the rules and regulations followed. It can’t be so difficult. After all, even before FSDL got involved, there was football in India, even if on a smaller scale, with promotion and relegation in place. That was before the custodians of the game in the country ran after money, TRPs, big names and glossy coverage.
Whose job is it, anyway?
Going ahead, Jindal moots an American sports-style draft recruitment system and no relegation in the ISL to hurt their commercial interests. That would make it a closed shop with no consequences suffered for poor on-field performance. It would be like Chennai Super Kings carrying MS Dhoni, when he is a shadow of his former self, just because he brings in crowds and sponsors. Deeper pockets rule. Meritocracy, take a hike! In fact, as the Bengaluru FC owner puts it accurately, “poor-performing teams are rewarded with higher draft picks, more allocation money. The idea is to promote competitive balance, not punishment.”
When there is hue and cry over tiny nations like Curacao, Cape Verde and Haiti making it to the FIFA World Cup while India is nowhere close despite being the most populous country in the world, it’s often observed that football is a major sport in only pockets of the country. But even the population of those pockets would be much more than many of the countries featuring in North America in the summer, most of whom would be making do with a basic football structure in place.
Indian football needs to get the foundation in place. That may not be financially rewarding in the short term, but those in charge of the sport in the country need to put the interest of football – not just the league and the franchises – before the balance sheet.