iSport's Guest Writer Shaji Prabhakaran argues that Indian Media has been strongly supporting Indian Football, irrespective of the achievements of the national football team over the decades.
Media in India is often blamed that it only promotes cricket and therefore, all the money and glamour goes to gentleman's game. Is this true? Or it is just the perception among non-cricket sports fraternity in India.
Whatever the situation may be with other sport, but one sport that cannot complain about media that is football. If today, Indian football is talked and discussed in length on various forums about its potential then it is because of Indian media which is keeping the sport alive with uninterrupted coverage of different aspect of domestic and international football.
It is pertinent to note that media has given due space to Indian football irrespective of its achievement. Football's last big achievement came way back in 1970 when India won the bronze medal in Asian Games and thereafter, India did not win anything at international level for close to three decades except in 1974 when India was declared joint champions with Iran in Asian Youth Championship.
In fact, football kind of struggled to get international results until recently where India won Nehru Cup (2007 & 2009) and AFC Challenge Cup (2008). By virtue of winning AFC Challenge Cup in 2008 the second most populated country made it to the Asian Cup 2011 for the first time after 1984.
It would be naive to point out that media failed in supporting football in India. Let's analyse few situations to exemplify the positive role of media towards Indian football.
Firstly, why substantial Indian youth is hooked to football?
Secondly, why International community thinks India has a potential?
Thirdly, why corporate India talks about Indian football?
Fourthly, why some cine stars are interested in Indian football?
All the four situations when analysed in depth points out to the fact that it is the media which highlighted football in right spirit across its mediums which resulted in creating favourable perception about potential of football in India and abroad.
If youths in India are trying to become next Messis or Ronaldos or aspiring to play for best clubs in Europe are just not creation of only big leagues of Europe or international broadcasters but it is also due to positive role played by media back in India. Thus, each of such favourable situations which exist in Indian football today, the media has played its constructive role.
Yes of course, one can argue about the amount of negative news carried on beautiful game in India but sometime those criticisms in public domain help the progressive organization connected to the game in correcting and adopting best measures for the development of the game.
As long as media is not biased in reporting, and projects all perspectives on different issues concerning the game and stakeholders one should not complain. In the end, one has to analyse India's position globally and when sometime right effort is made to dig the facts of non-performance by Indian football then that indicates towards some hard facts which media is compelled to present in front of public so as to put things in perspective.
However, it is always expected that such analytical stories would be taken positively to make the game better in India. But in no case those analytical fact-finding stories should become personal in nature unless there is hard evidence to back the findings. Fortunately, nothing of that sort is a trend or discussed in media concerning Indian football.
World Cup 2010 is hugely successful in India in terms of viewership and events related to it. The surprising fact is that without India being in World Cup the number of journalist covering the event is one of the largest among non-participating countries.
The daily news and analysis on world cup is exceptional and amount of coverage in print and electronic media is phenomenal when considering the fact that India is not one of the 32 teams in South Africa. This positive work by media again aid in attracting Indian public towards football and it also motivates India to do something concrete in football so that second fastest growing economy can narrow the gap and ends up playing in future editions of World Cup.
The crucial fact is that media has played a critical role in highlighting many positive developments which are happening in Indian football. Because of its active job those developments became much more meaningful and purposeful.
The best part of all, where it has played most significant role is on various development concerning players in India. It has put in public domain the most positive aspects related to Indian players whether that is related to Bhaichung's progress or about his colleagues.
Bringing those developments constantly in public domain brought out encouraging sides of Indian football and many youth aspiring to become professional stars in future must have got motivated by those instances.
The pertinent question is then, is media rightly engaged by relevant entities in football to play an imperative role in the development of beautiful game? Of course not, but for that to happen, all organizations working for football would have to become very pro active and should have a plan and strategy in place to engage media.
Ignoring media is unacceptable in modern day sports management. Media is truly a powerful medium of communication for any forward looking organization. Without connecting to and working with this powerful medium nothing concrete can be achieved in this 21st Century highly globalized competitive market place.
Entities working for football must activate all the channels to connect better with this influential medium and make the world's most popular game truly beautiful in India.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
a guest
said:
 |
... The question to be answered is does the media cover Indian Football. The children want to emulate Messia and Ronaldo thanks to match coverage. The success of the World Cup in India is because it is the biggest global event. Will this help Indian Football - NO why do foreigner clubs want to invest in India, it isbecuase of the economy and massive population. Did media play its part in this - NO. You can compare the amount of column space written about the world cup in 2010 and compare the column space given to Indiafootball in the last 1 year. So has the media really written about Indian Football ? |
a guest
said:
|
... Dempo won the national league and the amount of coverage given to the Goans - both in print and on Zee Sports - was absolutely abysmal this season. Probably one of the poorest in recent memory. India - as a market for the global game - has an unbelievably lucrative television viewership and with the World Cup that is primarily why ESPN-STAR are reaping the benefits today ... and the print coverage basically complements the public's interest for what is widely considered the biggest sporting even in the world. Example - Manchester United has a cafe/restaurant in Mumbai. Not an academy. Not a coaching clinic. A purely commercial venture to cash in on the EPL viewing audience. Absolutely no interest in impacting Indian football whatsoever. The Indian football fans are interested in European and World Football. Not Indian football. Meanwhile the football authorities are far too busy in their political games to make any real contributions. That 'Indian media supports football' does not cut it for what is ideally the most popular sport in the world and at this stage NO PUBLICATION CAN AFFORD TO IGNORE IT. I say this as a close follower of the game for over three decades now. Indian football, well that is another story. |
Show/hide comment form
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
