‘I-league should get priority over ISL’
NEW DELHI: One thing is for certain, football’s global governing body Fifa is desperate to help the ‘sleeping giants’ of football (in the words of Fifa president Sepp Blatter), India, to wake up. Having already successfully bid for the under-17 World Cup, to be held in the country in 2017, the FIFA-AIFF developmental plans were strengthened on Wednesday with the unveiling of a strategic plan jointly signed by Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke and AIFF president Praful Patel that would focus on grassroots and rural development.
In a media interaction in the capital on Wednesday, Valcke expressed his confidence that India would host a successful U17 Cup that would serve as a stepping stone towards bigger and better things. “The under-17 World Cup should be treated as the beginning and not the end of India’s global footballing adventure,” he said.
However, in the season of the inaugural Indian Super League (ISL), questions were bound to be raised about the league in comparison with the national football league of India, the I-league. “The ISL will be good to attract attention to the game in India, but for us at Fifa and will definitely help to attract youngsters to the game, but India only has one league, the I-league. The ISL cannot stand as an alternative to the I-league,” Valcke said.
He further stressed that the most important aspect of the ISL is the plan of the franchises to initiate grassroots developmental programmes.
Patel added: “The ISL teams have also been in contact with us because it is difficult to sustain the business model with a threemonth league.” He thus hinted that an amalgamation of the two tournaments could take place in the future. Patel also added that India will bid for the Club World Championships (2015 and 16 editions.) “The next logical step should be to bid for the under-20 World Cup,” Valcke said. He is hopeful that the government and business leaders will help out in this voyage to build better football infrastructure. Valcke also confirmed that Qatar remains the host of the 2022 World Cup unless the findings of the Michael Garcia-led inquiry unravel malpractices in the bidding process.