A dog’s dinner or worse!

Indian football’s slide started midway through the 1970s, never to be arrested, after all... The country’s major clubs are just as responsible for its football gloom as its national federation because finding and grooming talent — FIFA and its loyalists call it youth development — is alien to their nature.

When Michael Jackson moonwalked, his fans simply went wild. But try coaxing and cajoling someone into going down Indian football’s memory lane and chances are you will have even the diehard buff of the game rolling his eyes, consulting his wristwatch and remembering an important appointment a mile and a half away. That is not because you or I can’t sing like Jackson, but due in a large measure to the general impression that it is where history keeps repeating itself, tragedy having long been indistinguishable from farce.

The slide started midway through the 1970s, never to be arrested, after all. And as one started looking up one’s old, dogeared notepads for this 40year retrospective view, the boom of the voice in New Delhi that barred India from the 201■ Asian Games in Indonesia — saying, in so many words, that the Indian Olympic Association preferred medal prospects to also

SAHIL NANDA AND H. VIBHU Leagues that are not beneficial: Above: Jubilant Minerva Punjab FC players carry the team owner, Ranjit Bajaj, following their triumph in the Ileague earlier this year. Facing page: Chennaiyin FC, the ISL team, has overwhelming support from its fans, but both the leagues don’t seem to be carrying Indian football forward.