Is ISL really good for Indian football?

Zico, Alessandro Del Piero, Nicolas Anelka, and even Marco Materazzi.

Big names, yes, but they aren’t carrying any magical wand that can change Indian football’s fortune overnight.

By having these veteran stars in a pajama football league called the Indian Soccer League, if the federation thinks it’s one of the biggest things to happen in the country, then I’m sure they are taking all of us for a bumpy ride.

Today, the Indian team had another disastrous outing at the Asian Games in Incheon. We’re used to such humiliation every four years. At the same time, the federation is all geared up to host the pajama-drama and still claims that developing football in India through retired world stars is a kind of revolution.

Someone in the officialdom must be kidding.

Losing out to a strife-torn Afghanistan in the SAFF Championship, followed by a defeat against Pakistan at home in a friendly last month, are some of the recent performances of our national teams. Why was the team sent to Korea when we know it lacks both quality and stamina?

Actually, we’re thick-skinned.

There is no return on the investment made in such tours and tournaments, which only bring disappointment. If we simply judge from a business point of view, sending the team to the Games was sheer wastage of money. It’s the officials who actually benefit from these tours, and since most of them now know the art of Facebooking, they will definitely post their tour pictures on the wall.

It’s difficult to put a benchmark for these short-sighted officials. The AIFF should immediately stop sending teams to international tournaments. Ideally, they should focus on developing players from the grassroots level.

I don’t remember the last time the AIFF did something sensible. Probably, they haven’t done anything in the last 20 years. When it came to promoting the game, it was all about touch-and-go.

If the National Football League was launched in 1996, it was replaced by the I-League in 2007. And within seven years, the parent body actually killed the national league with another venture that won’t really improve the deplorable standard.

As for the U-17 World Cup, we just want to be a “good host,” that’s the bottom line. Achieving results or the urge to do well in a top junior event has never been the motto.

Here in Doha, European coaches and even the Arabs make fun of our players.

After watching the U-19 team here in the AFC qualifiers last October, one former coach of a top Spanish club said, “C’mon, your boys can’t even last 90 minutes!”