09-11-2014, 10:20 AM
Wondered if anyone has been following the start of the new Hero Indian Super League?
I must say I do have some personal interest in the league being of Indian ethnicity, but on the whole it's rather interesting to see the dawn of a new league for a nation, that like China, has huge potential to make a massive impact in football, but until now hasn't done so.
Firstly, I want to say that Indian football has been and is a mess. Simply put, the infrastructure's been a total mess, while young talented players produced in the nation have generally been picked up by foreign sides (usually to try and gain access to the Indian market) only to fail as they're not ready for a more competitive league/environment.
What's interesting about the Super League is that it appears to be attempting to put a decent infrastructure in place and is using methods from the USA and Japan, as well as the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, which has been a massive success and is the biggest cricket competition in the world today.
Around 8 clubs throughout India have been set up. Taking cues from the J-League and NASL, the clubs have all signed marquee players to help raise their profile. We're talking about the likes David James (who's a player manager), Del Piero, Anelka, Pires, Trezeguet and Capdavilla. In terms of coaches, we're talking about Peter Reid, David James, Zico and Franco Colomba being involved. Personally, I'm interested in seeing so many different football cultures and schools of thought coming together in one league.
In terms of infrastructure, the interesting thing about the league is that it's got ties and partnerships with other successful leagues and clubs. For example, there is a partnership with the Premiership (which is huge in India) and Fiorentina has a partnership with a club from Pune.
Taking cues from the massively successful cricket tournament IPL (which is actually why the ISL has struggled to take off sooner), most of the clubs (which I think follow the American franchise model) are backed by big companies and/or extremely wealthy celebrity figures.
Some of those involved include former cricketers Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar (2 of India's greatest sportsmen) and famous actors like Salman Khan, John Abraham and Abhishek Bachan. While these names aren't well known outside of India or oversees Indian communities, that's comparable to the likes of Michael Jordan and Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt being involved in the sporting ownership. They are names that will garner interest in the tournament and give it some credibility in terms of backing, whilst they will surely attract interest from people and the media who may not necessarily follow the sport, but do follow these individuals.
What it comes down to is this may be a massive moment in the future of Indian football. They are following on from successes of the IPL, which has effectively changed cricket as a sport and while this isn't likely to change the football landscape, it is an exciting time for football in the country and could lay the groundwork for the future.
It kind of reminds me of the advent of the J-League back in the early 90's (1993 if I'm right), which changed football in Japan forever, with the likes of Kazi Miura and Hide Nakata being developed and exported to Italy (the biggest league back then) and then Japan qualifying for their first World Cup in 1998. Now Japan is the top footballing nation in Asia (arguably being the fastest growing football nation in the world).
For India, this could provide the professionalism, revenue, interest and infrastructure to follow a similar path towards growing as a football nation. Obviously, the first step is if the league takes off, then resources must be used towards developing talents in the nation and laying the grass roots, which until now has never been the case.
From there, who knows, we might be talking about Indian players moving to Milan and India attending their first World Cup (they previously qualified in 1950, but weren't involved in the tournament).
Personally I'm excited and interested in seeing this and was wondering if others have heard about it and have any interest?
I must say I do have some personal interest in the league being of Indian ethnicity, but on the whole it's rather interesting to see the dawn of a new league for a nation, that like China, has huge potential to make a massive impact in football, but until now hasn't done so.
Firstly, I want to say that Indian football has been and is a mess. Simply put, the infrastructure's been a total mess, while young talented players produced in the nation have generally been picked up by foreign sides (usually to try and gain access to the Indian market) only to fail as they're not ready for a more competitive league/environment.
What's interesting about the Super League is that it appears to be attempting to put a decent infrastructure in place and is using methods from the USA and Japan, as well as the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, which has been a massive success and is the biggest cricket competition in the world today.
Around 8 clubs throughout India have been set up. Taking cues from the J-League and NASL, the clubs have all signed marquee players to help raise their profile. We're talking about the likes David James (who's a player manager), Del Piero, Anelka, Pires, Trezeguet and Capdavilla. In terms of coaches, we're talking about Peter Reid, David James, Zico and Franco Colomba being involved. Personally, I'm interested in seeing so many different football cultures and schools of thought coming together in one league.
In terms of infrastructure, the interesting thing about the league is that it's got ties and partnerships with other successful leagues and clubs. For example, there is a partnership with the Premiership (which is huge in India) and Fiorentina has a partnership with a club from Pune.
Taking cues from the massively successful cricket tournament IPL (which is actually why the ISL has struggled to take off sooner), most of the clubs (which I think follow the American franchise model) are backed by big companies and/or extremely wealthy celebrity figures.
Some of those involved include former cricketers Saurav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar (2 of India's greatest sportsmen) and famous actors like Salman Khan, John Abraham and Abhishek Bachan. While these names aren't well known outside of India or oversees Indian communities, that's comparable to the likes of Michael Jordan and Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt being involved in the sporting ownership. They are names that will garner interest in the tournament and give it some credibility in terms of backing, whilst they will surely attract interest from people and the media who may not necessarily follow the sport, but do follow these individuals.
What it comes down to is this may be a massive moment in the future of Indian football. They are following on from successes of the IPL, which has effectively changed cricket as a sport and while this isn't likely to change the football landscape, it is an exciting time for football in the country and could lay the groundwork for the future.
It kind of reminds me of the advent of the J-League back in the early 90's (1993 if I'm right), which changed football in Japan forever, with the likes of Kazi Miura and Hide Nakata being developed and exported to Italy (the biggest league back then) and then Japan qualifying for their first World Cup in 1998. Now Japan is the top footballing nation in Asia (arguably being the fastest growing football nation in the world).
For India, this could provide the professionalism, revenue, interest and infrastructure to follow a similar path towards growing as a football nation. Obviously, the first step is if the league takes off, then resources must be used towards developing talents in the nation and laying the grass roots, which until now has never been the case.
From there, who knows, we might be talking about Indian players moving to Milan and India attending their first World Cup (they previously qualified in 1950, but weren't involved in the tournament).
Personally I'm excited and interested in seeing this and was wondering if others have heard about it and have any interest?