The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is set to revamp its grassroots development programme with the introduction of what they are calling the 'Baby League', plans for which will be unveiled in March. This league is intended to involve greater participation from children starting from the age of five years centered as much around match-play as it is around skills development.
It is a project driven by AIFF's Head of Youth Development Richard Hood. At a meeting earlier this month in New Delhi, inputs about the baby league were sought from former India international players and coaches such as Bhaichung Bhutia, IM Vijayan, Sukhwinder Singh, Jo Paul Ancheri, outgoing Technical Director Scott O'Donell and his successor Savio Medeira.
Football experts explain the importance of this proposal and how the idea came about.
A reboot of the existing grassroots development structure
AIFF rolled out a grassroots programme for the first time in 2008, with Mizoram featuring as the first state to conduct a grassroots course in October of that year. In subsequent years, similar projects were launched in Bengal, Chandigarh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Assam, Goa and Kerala. Hood, though, believes the methods of engagement with football have been limited. "The problem in India is that we haven't moved beyond festivals of football over the last two decades," says Hood, himself an AFC and UEFA 'A' license holder, who headed Bengaluru FC's academy before joining AIFF.
"There is no consistent model of engagement with the sport, and that is a huge part that kids miss out on. In Japan, children are probably engaging with the sport for 52 weeks in a year, and the corresponding number in India is not more than three."
The concept of a baby league, says Hood, comes from nations in south and central America like Uruguay, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Colombia, which he says contributed about 7000 players worth about 3.5 billion dollars in the last transfer window. The reason, he says, is they are primed to "play to win" from an early stage, something that doesn't even happen in countries like England and USA.
He also emphasises that the reason for looking at South American nations is because of the similarity of the grassroots football environments. Trying to implement youth development programmes of countries like Germany example, would not work in India.
"It is very easy to talk of Germany's 12-year plan that helped them win the 2014 World Cup, but then you must remember they came to that stage after having won three world titles before," says Hood.
He was referring to a famous revamp of the German youth development system after a poor outing at the 2000 European Championships, where they failed to qualify for the knockouts despite being defending champions. "They won in 2014, but they have always made the quarter-finals or semi-finals or final for so many years before that. The 12-year plan and rebooting came after almost 70 years of development."
Hood points out that international stars such as Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero have often mentioned that in their formative years, they had played football with a high intensity and with a will to win at all costs.
"It was interesting that India's football greats said much the same. A Bhaichung Bhutia or IM Vijayan played football with the same mental mind set, but then they never had 100 games a year to improve consistently as children. Who knows, maybe they would have been even better players by the time they were 13 or 14, if they had had that kind of exposure," says Hood.
Former India captain Bruno Coutinho, supports this re-tooling of Indian football structures based on his own experience: "When I was playing, there were foreign coaches who would tell me that I was never going to realise my potential in India and I should look to play in Europe. Unfortunately, back then there was no exposure to player agents or no support system."
The question of culture
Shaji Prabhakaran, former FIFA regional development officer however believes emulating a South American model could also be difficult to achieve in India. "Children there are born into football, and it is a part of their house. Can Indian children play with that brand of aggression? I would look at this as a chance to give exposure and a chance to play," he says.
However, Hood thinks otherwise. "In South America, the ground conditions can be much worse than what we have even in India. Many ex-players and coaches in those countries have often pointed to that as an advantage, because when they developed their skills on those grounds, they were able to adapt better later on."
He offers another nugget of how Indian youth can become street-smart in the sport. "In western countries, children are taught at 7-8 years of age to learn the referee's name before a game. This is because it is believed that if you call a referee by their first name, they are less likely to flash a yellow card at you."
Shaji Prabhakaran welcomes the concept of 'hot spots' (football centres across the country that already have a presence in Indian football), calling it an "excellent initiative", but says that it cannot be a nation-wide concept yet. "The league should happen at a local level - villages, districts and states. I hope teams don't have to travel much. The government should also get involved in this through schools and make this a part of curriculum."
Hood agrees, saying, "If you look at our youth teams, 70 per cent of our team's composition comes from parts of the country that make up just 1 per cent of population - places like North-east, Bengal and Goa. Ironically, these are the places with the least number of qualified coaches.
"This is where culture kicks in - basic football can be taught with a 100-page manual on how to pass the ball. But there's a difference when in the North-east, football is all that your father and older brother watch. In Goa, you might be growing up in a village where your circle has four or five professional footballers.
"It is far easier for a child in Manipur to dedicate six hours in a week to training than for a Mumbai kid to train for three, just because of the environment. It can't be a one-size-fits-all concept, either. For instance, the approach in Mizoram cannot be the same as that in Manipur."
The need for a long term vision
The Indian footballing community must be patient with this concept of a 'Baby League' and give time to widen the field of a generation of young competitive players.
"We must find more of an Indian way, and also how to make sure that the league will sustain itself and grow down the years. Kids and their parents don't have the mind-set to make this an outright success, but an initiative like this might make that change somewhere down the line," Prabhakaran says.
Bruno Coutinho feels this will be welcome step towards greater exposure for Indian players. "The first stage is implementing," he says. "The benefit for younger players today is they have something like the Indian Super League, where they are playing with some of the best players from around the world. This should inspire them to play abroad.
"Even if five players are good enough to play abroad, and if two out of them make it, that will be a huge."
The involvement of former players and coaches
Coutinho says he would like the AIFF to constantly take the inputs of former players and have them involved in the next stage of the Baby League: "I hope there will more such interactions. They should take our inputs not just at this stage, but later when selecting players. They can form a committee of former Indian players who will go across the country and identify talented youngsters. Let the league come into being, and then we will know in due course if we are getting something out of it."