The Salt Lake Stadium, home of Atletico de Kolkata and also the venue of the first ever ISL match
With the second season of the Indian Super League only six months away, the organizers yesterday revealed important information on how the second season will be conducted and what their long-term ambitions are. While these ambitions are very forward thinking, especially within the Indian football circuit, it is very important to note that as long as the Indian Super League remains as just a two to three spectacle which focuses more on the celebrities than the players then this “festival of football” will not do much to improve Indian football in the near future.
Indian football is in major need of a change. With the national football team languishing at 171 in the FIFA rankings, an all-time low, and the national I-League being less organized than in previous seasons it is more evident than before that there is need for drastic change and the Indian Super League can be a part of this change but they need to change from a “festival of football” to being an actual football league like the Premier League in England. This is how the organizers of the Indian Super League can do this:
1) Slowly increase the length of the league per season:
The first season of the Indian Super League went from October to December, with the second season now going from September to December. This short-season format has worked with the Indian Premier League cricket league but it can’t work with football. The top football leagues run for at least seven to eight months with the best league, the Premier League, running for ten months a season.
The Indian Super League organizers need to increase the length of the league in order for the tournament to help Indian football but it can’t just increase from three months to eight months just like that… the change would need to be gradual. For this season, have the league go from September to December and then for 2016 and 2017 have the league run from September to February and then 2018 go from September to March and eventually April. This should be easy to implement as the league adds in more teams and would make the league seem more legit.
2) Actually make the players contracted:
Rosters for the second Indian Super League are predicted to be completely different from the rosters in the first season. This is because the Indian players were only signed on-loan and not to proper contracts and because the foreign players were only given deals until the end of the season. Now, many of these foreign players have moved on to other teams in Europe and won’t be available for the second season. If the Indian Super League wants to establish itself as a proper league then it needs to be able to retain their better players and sign these players to contracts. This would also allow the players to integrate themselves with the fans and thus create a proper club culture within the league.
3) Better marquee players and coaches:
The first season of the Indian Super League saw marquee players such as a 40-year old Robert Pires and a retired Luis Garcia. We also saw old fashioned coaches such as Bryan Reid and inexperienced coaches like Marco Materazzi. If the Indian Super League is to establish itself as a league that can take Indian football higher then we need to be able to bring in better marquee players and coaches. Marquee players should be players coming from the top European clubs and who can all still contribute at a high level (such as David Villa who recently signed with Major League Soccer) and coaches should be those who recently coached in Europe (such as Paul Lambert who last coached Aston Villa of the Premier League).
These new marquee players and coaches will make sure that the quality on the field is better than the previous edition and would thus bring in more attention to the league which long-term could lead to more money invested in youth development.
4) The Start of Proper Youth Development Academies:
Probably the most important change that needs to occur for the Super League to really help Indian football. Currently, the Indian players on display in the league are sub-par at best. It was agreed by the media that it was the foreign players that made the Super League so good and that the Indian players lacked the quality to keep up.
While this is okay for the initial season, eventually Indians will want to see domestic Indian players doing well in the league and that can only happen if the development of younger Indian players is made better. The Indian Super League clubs are all owned by top businessmen so they have the money to start these academies, bring in good coaches, and provide adequate facilities.
These academies could also lead to money being made for the clubs through the transfer fees they could receive from foreign clubs for their young prospects and if not, the player can just play for the Super League club and not look behind in quality from his foreign peers.
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So overall, the first season of the Indian Super League was a massive success, it showed the world that India can support football and not just cricket but it so far has not really helped football in India grow yet and so far it won’t in the future. Change is needed in the Indian football world and the Super League can be the catalyst to this change but the organizers of the league need to be able to realize that in order for this change to happen, there needs to be a change in the league objective.
Currently it is about the celebrities and festival and less about the football. If India is to become big on football in the future then it needs to be about the football and aligning with the world standard already in place.
DesiBall 