Indian football is in urgent need of a facelift but the men in charge seem convinced that a botox procedure is the only way out.
If hiring semi-retired ex-World Cup stars to be marquee attractions for a franchise-based league will help pull the sport from the morass it currently is in, then all ills of Indian football should be solved in an instant from January next year.
Given Indian football's track record with failed experiments, whether it will really happen is anybody's guess. The All India Football Federation's thumping endorsement of the IMG-Reliance's plans at the executive committee's meeting clearly tipped the scales in the balance of their marketing partners, leaving the I-League clubs - the other stakeholders - very worried over their identity and future.
The immediate fear is that the national league would be the overgrown baby that will be thrown out with the bathwater. In the Rs 700 crore, 15-year deal with the AIFF (approx Rs 33cr per year till now), IMG-R spends approximately Rs.16 crore each year in conducting I-League.
The clubs' contention is that while they collectively spend well over Rs 100 crore per annum on their own accord, the introduction of another high-profile event would effectively destroy future chances of marketing the country's original league, something it is in dire need of.
Modelling everything on the opaque economic model of cricket's Indian Premier League in the hope to grab viewership numbers, the token celebrity presence and corporate attention many not necessarily work with other Indian sport.
In the current environment of give and take, behind the garb of development of the game there are vested interests at play too. If industry rumours are to be believed, Reliance has been insisting on a January 2014 date to kick off their tournament, since it would provide the ideal platform to market the launch of their 4G network at the same time.
A company source confirmed that the telecom giant was planning the ambitious launch of its network either at the end of the year, or early next year. The IPL-style tournament is scheduled to begin on January 19, through to March 30, bang in the middle of the I-League season.
There are sane voices from various quarters within the game - no less than the chief National coach, Win Koevermans himself - who are expressing caution at this sudden hurtle after years of inaction and indifference towards the I-League.
However, in all this, you cannot blame the Indian footballer to be torn between a lucrative deal, the chance to rub shoulders with foreign stars and an uncertain future.
For a reported Rs 75 lakh for two months, a current India player would be willing to be a free agent. But then again, this impasse will put him out of action for eight months, eventually hurting his future market value.
"I have to take care of myself," a IMG-R player told TOI, stressing, "We are training in the hope we can sign with a club once the season starts." With a month and a half left for the I-League to start, there looms a clear deadline to sort out the issue.
"There has been no progress as yet. We are waiting," said Raj Gomes, spokesperson of the I-League Professional Football Clubs Association (IPFCA). "The players stand to lose, but they could have come to us," he said indicating that in the conflict Indian football finds itself it, it is the Indian footballer, as always, who gets hurt the most
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