Chhetri video raises important question: Why don't Indian football fans go to stadiums anymore?

When Royal Wahingdoh played Shillong Lajong in their last match of the I-League, the Shillong derby attracted almost 27,000 spectators in 2014. If you thought the derby was an exception, it wasn’t. Lajong, on their entry to the I-League, attracted almost 15,000 stadium-going supporters in their initial seasons.

Fast forward to 2018 and Lajong barely struggle to fill up one-sixth of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, witnessing average attendances of 5,000 or lesser. The North East should not be judged by Aizawl and its rise alone.

The others – Meghalaya, Manipur – are in danger of frittering away years of footballing capital, as are traditional powerhouses Bengal and Goa. Sunil Chhetri’s one-time plea was an adrenaline shot, but it is part of a larger problem that the All India Football Federation and its stakeholders must move fast to fix.

Quality of football in question

The I-League witnessed a rise in average attendance this season but the real catalysts were Manipur-based Neroca and Gokulam Kerala FC. Like Lajong, Neroca’s novelty factor helped this season but sustaining it in the face of dwindling local league attendances will be a big challenge.

Take the case of Aizawl, who have seen their average attendance drop to 4,200 in a season where they finished sixth. This, after a season where they finished first, which had clocked average turnouts of 6,000.

Subrata Bhattacharyya, one of the legends of Kolkata and Indian football, is very blunt about why the Calcutta Football League (CFL) might not have as many takers as previous seasons: “Mohun Bagan matches at the Maidan get traction, yes, but what are we doing to support the smaller clubs? The Tollygunges, the Khiddirpores, the ones that actually go out and scout are dying.

“The people won’t come if the quality of the game doesn’t improve. The local game has considerably slowed down today and the clubs do nothing to attract the younger fan base.”

Stanislaus D’ Souza, in his piece for The Field explaining why Goa did not have a single representative in the Under-17 World Cup squad, also raised this point:

When I asked a few village friends about the lack of interest in bigger games a few years ago, they said: “What is the point in coming here when the kind of football we get to see is ordinary. Gone are the days when we would travel miles to watch a good game or some outstanding player. We had our own idols and knew they would deliver the goods. That’s why we would come to cheer them.”

It’s an undeniable fact that European football clubs find many more takers today than in the past. Yet, the need of the hour is co-existence, to create a parallel interest in local clubs as well. Bengaluru, Chennaiyin and Kerala Blasters are the three honourable exceptions in an otherwise tough market for domestic clubs.

Media’s neglect of the local game

For Renedy Singh, a local hero to attract people to the stadiums is a must. “Calcutta football was popular for so long because the people talk about their local players in their adda centres. You don’t see that in Delhi and Mumbai,” he said.

Renedy went on to state the role of the media in creating a local star and promoting local football. It’s no secret that the media, so used to covering national, local and hyperlocal football in the ’70s and ’80s, has seen European and international football competing for screen time or column space with Indian sport.

“People have to know that a local game is happening,” said Renedy when asked about India’s 1-2 loss to Turkmenistan in 2016 at Kochi, which saw a dismal attendance of 300. “It depends upon the marketing too. You can’t tell them three days before the game that a national team game is taking place. The Kerala Blasters deserve credit for their marketing but an Indian team’s game should have more buzz.”

It is impossible to expect football fans to turn up for the national team’s matches without a steady feed of local matches, second division matches and school/university games. In Japan, for example, the national school games final witnesses crowds of 40,000 or more.

“It evokes a nationalistic feeling among the fans to support a 80-year-old tournament,” said Tom Byer, known as the one of the key men involved in turning around Japanese football. “Here, the base is pretty strong. You have 54 teams in the top three tiers followed by the Japan football league. All levels of football, including the hugely popular women’s football team have immense support.”

Floyd Pinto, former coach of Kenkre in the Mumbai Premier Division and now assistant to Luis Norton de Matos at the Indian Arrows, spoke about harnessing more support for the local games, building from the ground up: “Prior to games, we’d reach out to parents and family members of players and ask them to come. That way, we’d always have a sizeable base of 50-100 to rely on.”

Disappearing tournaments

Speaking of local football, the smorgasbord on offer till a few years ago has virtually dwindled. With the efforts to turn professional, the flavour of the local football scenes has disappeared.

Over 40 tournaments and more, which were considered the fore-runners to the modern leagues, have now shut down or in a comatose condition. The Sait Nagjee Cup, the Rovers Cup, the DCM Trophy and the Nadkarni Cup are just some examples.

A lack of continuity and start-stop leagues make it erratic and irregular for the casual fan to follow. The National Football League, which ran for 10 years, shut down only to be replaced by the I-League, which is on its last legs 11 years after its inception.

For us, the Durand was the epitome of great football as the best Indian clubs and institutional sides participated. The DCM Trophy also attracted good club sides, but till 1990 Mohun Bagan disdained participation in a tournament they regarded as commercial.

— Novy Kapadia in 'Barefoot to Boots'

Ullas Marar, one of the West Block Blues (Bengaluru FC’s fan club) and a resident of Bengaluru, proved the point of continuity: “The real crowds come in for the Independence Cup, which happens in Bangalore East on a maidan. There, it’s crazy old-school, and a different profile of crowds that you may possibly find at the BFS in smaller numbers but almost certainly not at the Kanteerava [Stadium].”

Lack of sustained exposure to products, whether leagues or tournaments, has proved a major barrier. Familiarity brings loyalty, constant chopping, changing and re-branding can only prove counter-productive.

A lack of women supporters

Although the number of women attending football matches as a percentage of the whole has gone up, a significant chunk remain elusive due to a neglect of the basic facilities.

Philarima Hynniewta, a long-time Lajong supporter and active on Indian football forums pinpoints to a lack of security as a huge drawback: “In terms of stadium experience, I’d say security. I know many friends who avoid attending big games especially a derby because of lack of security and this is known to everyone thus discouraging many others.

“Something else is transportation. Especially after the games. During the U17 WC here in Kolkata, many people were really happy with the easily availability of transportation but when it comes to a regular game at the stadium, getting a car at 10-10.30 pm is quite a nuisance. Couple that with the fact that parents are reluctant to send their daughters to games which are late at night,” she added.

Many clubs like Lajong and Bengaluru have made an active effort to reach out to their female fan-bases, but the realisation that they may be missing out on half the local populace is still yet to dawn on some other clubs. Sanitary and hygienic facilities at stadiums are also construed as a major turning point in attracting women and children to the games.

Add to that, a lack of promotions and buzz around women’s tournaments and footballers as such, and the loop of neglect is complete. Cricket has a Mithali Raj, tennis has a Sania Mirza, badminton has PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal. Football had a Shanti Mullick, then a Bembem Devi and now a Bala Devi, but it is safe to say that these three do not enjoy the popularity that their trail-blazing counterparts in other sports have, partly due to a lack of promotion from within and by the media.

The Indian Women’s League was poorly promoted, saw few local takers and empty grounds streamed on a less-than-stable medium did not help its cause at all. Held in Shillong, Philarima points out another gaping flaw in the plan: “Most importantly, they couldn’t connect with IWL. Had there been a home side, it would have made a difference. Most of them didn’t know that there’s been previous versions of IWL.”

Scheduling madness

Yet, one aspect of Indian football is more striking than the rest. The concept of smart scheduling is lost on organisers and sometimes hampered by unavailability of grounds at specific times, due to owners/authorities jacking up the price at peak periods.

The IWL is again a prime example. Matches were held on weekdays at 11 in the morning, thereby completely alienating the working class. Weather conditions are also often neglected.

A few I-League matches held at 2 pm on Tuesdays in Kerala and Coimbatore did not see optimum turnouts due to blazing hot temperatures. Similarly, holding 8 pm kick-offs in Shillong and Aizawl in January is off-putting to local consumers, due to the chilly nature of the conditions.

The head coach of an I-League second division game says that hosting matches at 1.30 pm in the month of May is a “serious neglect of the footballers’ safety”. With temperatures in most Indian cities touching 40 degrees Celsius, something also witnessed at the Federation Cup 2017 in Odisha, why would spectators attend when most footballers would stay away?

Chhetri himself admitted on the eve of his 100th game that India’s group stage matches at the Intercontinental Cup, held on a Friday, Monday and Thursday, could have been pushed to a weekend, thereby attracting more crowds.

Marar added, “It’s said that people in Bangalore live for the weekends and it’s true. So if you give them just a two-day heads up, chances are that the casual fans have already made other plans. Plus, make it easier to buy tickets.”

If the I-League’s schedule was finalised 10 days before the kick-off of the tournament and the Super Cup was decided a week prior to the kick-off of the qualifiers, then what chance do the other tournaments have?

A lack of marketing nous and hyperlocal connect

There is also a feeling that the marketing techniques being utilised are anachronistic. For the Intercontinental Cup, promos were run by Star Sports on their channels and digital streaming service Hotstar but little else. The fact that matches were being held in Mumbai was lost on many.

While the need to draw television audiences are understandable, the fact that empty stadiums make for poor viewership tends to be forgotten at times. One product that has gone viral and has a sizeable following is the sevens football of Kerala.

Unni Paravannur, administrator of the hugely popular Indian football news aggregator Football News India, tried to explain this phenomenon: “Sevens is very tied to the community. Mostly tourneys are conducted by local clubs and people from nearby areas turn up for the matches. Except for some high profile tourneys where you will find people from different districts and such turn up. In the last few years, the organisers have given a charity twist as well. Like they will allocate a share of the ticket collection for charity. This also helps to attract the crowd.”

Hyperlocal and community outreach, ultimately, are the building blocks of a sustainable supporter base, from a women’s club in Imphal to Bengaluru FC to a Bundesliga club. A Kryphsa in Imphal gets donations from 3,500 patrons, as does a Cologne in Germany from a 100,000 supporters, the size of donations obviously being on a higher scale but the model of ownership remaining the same.

Bengaluru, though privately owned, have made players and officials easily accessible to a fan base that has surpassed critical mass, thus leading to a feeling of shared ownership, which is unsurprisingly percolating through to the lower levels.

“Our interest in local football stems from our connect with BFC. Since our youth teams play in BDFA (Bangalore District Football Association), we have gradually started taking an active interest in local football. For example, there were some BFC fans who went to watch the second division [I-League] final even though Bengaluru weren’t playing,” explained Marar, about the new-found interest in local division and Under-18 games.

Sukhwinder Singh, league-winning manager with JCT in 1996, also lamented that no one before Minerva had done enough to re-ignite local football in Punjab. “JCT enjoyed massive support in Phagwara and elsewhere. We had local village tournaments in Punjab, which had 1500-2000 people attending. Those have produced many great players. When JCT shut down, the production line of local players and thereby the local connect with the sport slowly scaled down.”

No short-term fix

At the end of the day, it is impossible for anyone to play in empty stadiums, said Renedy. “No one wants to play in front of a small crowd. It affects our game too and when our game goes down, no one will come to attend. Just look at Goa: they had Clifford Miranda, Samir Naik during my time and Dempo were champions. There were players in the national team and people want to back champions.”

The onus, however, cannot just fall on the administrators, local players or the clubs. The educators and local authorities are as much to blame for this decline as anyone else. Sunil Chhetri’s video did lead to Indian football being sharply brought back into focus, but the important parameter to judge its effectiveness would be to see whether the interest sustains beyond the tournament.

Asking the players to make a personal plea is a romantic but illogical plan to counter the viewing malaise. The problems listed above are merely a tip of the iceberg, with each region having their own specific challenges to overcome. There is no short fix, as much as those hopeful in a world of trending news may claim.