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The birth of India's Premier League Soccer - Will the 'franchise-based football' emulate cricket or fizzle out like its hockey counterpart?
Goal.com's Debjit Lahiri looks into whether the Premier League Soccer can emulate the 'super-hit' formula of the Indian Premier League or fade out like the ill-fated PHL
Jan 25, 2012 9:00:00 AM
COMMENT
By Debjit Lahiri
When Kapil Dev's Indian underdogs lifted the 1983 Cricket World Cup, it not only marked a significant landmark in the history of the game, but also on the entire sporting scenario of the nation. The triumph gave the Indians an international recognition and came at a time when the country was on the verge of a 'sporting decline'.
India was never a nation outstanding in athletics and other sports involving heavy physical capabilities - although the national hockey team pocketed six consecutive Olympic gold medals between 1928 and 1956. So, in a way, cricket provided the only hope for the sports fanatics in the country. There have been recent heroes in other sports in India, but the nation's addiction to cricket remains unparallelled.
So in 2005, in a bid to popularise hockey, which had by now completely fallen victim to cricket's overwhelming popularity, the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) launched a franchise-based hockey tournament - the Premier Hockey League (PHL).
The PHL tried to bring in 'regional flavour', fielding teams from traditional hockey bastions such as Mumbai, Punjab, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, as well as other places like Hyderabad and Bangalore, where it had a decent fan following. However, despite the early promise, the tournament fell into mismanagement and was soon made defunct in 2008.
In 2007, cricket launched the franchise-based Indian Premier League (IPL). A brainchild of Lalit Modi, the tournament met with unprecedented success, being one of the world's most watched sporting events and its brand value is now estimated to be around a staggering €2.8 billion. Incidentally, Modi had initially proposed the event as a football tournament in India, which was revealed by Goal.com, but the plan never materialised and the rest is history.
Now the Indian Football Association (IFA) is set to launch football's very own IPL, the Premier League Soccer (PLS), in a month from now, the question that begs to be answered is - will the PLS emulate the success story of Cricket's IPL or just fizzle out like Hockey's PHL?
World Cup Champ | Presence of international stars like Fabio Cannavaro will only help
Well, first of all, keeping our feet firmly to the ground, it will be very naive to read much into the success of IPL and hope for a similar result here. The IPL was launched in a midst of an already existing fan base for the game. It's completely a different ball game to popularise an event when you have to start from scratch, as seen in the case of PHL.
Also mega-events such as these require proper management. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) - for all its drawbacks - had some shrewd minds who played a pivotal role in IPL's success. The IFA, like the IHF, are not known for such management.
However, the biggest letdown would be its confinement to the state of West Bengal. Certainly it would help to glamourise the sport in the state and the fact that West Bengal has a decent fan following for football already is a boost, but will it manage to grab attention from outside the state? How much of a significance can it actually hold for Indian football as a whole?
Secondly, the teams being districts of West Bengal, one wonders how much of a fan interest can they eventually attract. Indians - despite being excessively inclined to "regionalism" - do not quite relate themselves to their "districts".
It will be interesting to see how the football fans of West Bengal themselves react to this "franchise format", given that they already have pledged their loyalties to either of the two big clubs - Mohun Bagan or East Bengal. Adapting to a whole new franchise culture might take time and there are other issues like infrastructure concerns too.
Nevertheless, the presence of international stars such as Fabio Cannavaro, Robert Pires and Hernan Crespo, will remain the sole forte of the event. Capitalists and sponsors would certainly invest on the Crespo's and the Cannavaro's rather than the Odafe's and Yakubu's, and that will help the tournament grow in its own way separate to the national I-League.
One may argue that the PHL too had similar foreign influence but thanks to the extensive telecast of European football and the growing interest towards it, the likes of Pires and Crespo are more familiar names to Indians than their hockey counterparts - Sohail Abbas, Ramón Alegre and co.
It is definitely a new step taken to help the cause of Indian football. Whether it will ultimately pan out in the best of ways remains to be seen, but the very fact that an initiative has been taken is a big bonus for the country's footballing community. Regardless of what happens next, we might well consider to have done away with the so-called "static phase" of Indian football.
Follow Debjit Lahiri on
What Do You Make Of The PLS? Will It Match The IPL? Let us know below
By Debjit Lahiri
When Kapil Dev's Indian underdogs lifted the 1983 Cricket World Cup, it not only marked a significant landmark in the history of the game, but also on the entire sporting scenario of the nation. The triumph gave the Indians an international recognition and came at a time when the country was on the verge of a 'sporting decline'.
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India was never a nation outstanding in athletics and other sports involving heavy physical capabilities - although the national hockey team pocketed six consecutive Olympic gold medals between 1928 and 1956. So, in a way, cricket provided the only hope for the sports fanatics in the country. There have been recent heroes in other sports in India, but the nation's addiction to cricket remains unparallelled.
So in 2005, in a bid to popularise hockey, which had by now completely fallen victim to cricket's overwhelming popularity, the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) launched a franchise-based hockey tournament - the Premier Hockey League (PHL).
The PHL tried to bring in 'regional flavour', fielding teams from traditional hockey bastions such as Mumbai, Punjab, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, as well as other places like Hyderabad and Bangalore, where it had a decent fan following. However, despite the early promise, the tournament fell into mismanagement and was soon made defunct in 2008.
In 2007, cricket launched the franchise-based Indian Premier League (IPL). A brainchild of Lalit Modi, the tournament met with unprecedented success, being one of the world's most watched sporting events and its brand value is now estimated to be around a staggering €2.8 billion. Incidentally, Modi had initially proposed the event as a football tournament in India, which was revealed by Goal.com, but the plan never materialised and the rest is history.
Now the Indian Football Association (IFA) is set to launch football's very own IPL, the Premier League Soccer (PLS), in a month from now, the question that begs to be answered is - will the PLS emulate the success story of Cricket's IPL or just fizzle out like Hockey's PHL?
Well, first of all, keeping our feet firmly to the ground, it will be very naive to read much into the success of IPL and hope for a similar result here. The IPL was launched in a midst of an already existing fan base for the game. It's completely a different ball game to popularise an event when you have to start from scratch, as seen in the case of PHL.
Also mega-events such as these require proper management. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) - for all its drawbacks - had some shrewd minds who played a pivotal role in IPL's success. The IFA, like the IHF, are not known for such management.
However, the biggest letdown would be its confinement to the state of West Bengal. Certainly it would help to glamourise the sport in the state and the fact that West Bengal has a decent fan following for football already is a boost, but will it manage to grab attention from outside the state? How much of a significance can it actually hold for Indian football as a whole?
Secondly, the teams being districts of West Bengal, one wonders how much of a fan interest can they eventually attract. Indians - despite being excessively inclined to "regionalism" - do not quite relate themselves to their "districts".
Confined to West Bengal | Will the Indians outside the state follow PLS?
It will be interesting to see how the football fans of West Bengal themselves react to this "franchise format", given that they already have pledged their loyalties to either of the two big clubs - Mohun Bagan or East Bengal. Adapting to a whole new franchise culture might take time and there are other issues like infrastructure concerns too.
Nevertheless, the presence of international stars such as Fabio Cannavaro, Robert Pires and Hernan Crespo, will remain the sole forte of the event. Capitalists and sponsors would certainly invest on the Crespo's and the Cannavaro's rather than the Odafe's and Yakubu's, and that will help the tournament grow in its own way separate to the national I-League.
One may argue that the PHL too had similar foreign influence but thanks to the extensive telecast of European football and the growing interest towards it, the likes of Pires and Crespo are more familiar names to Indians than their hockey counterparts - Sohail Abbas, Ramón Alegre and co.
It is definitely a new step taken to help the cause of Indian football. Whether it will ultimately pan out in the best of ways remains to be seen, but the very fact that an initiative has been taken is a big bonus for the country's footballing community. Regardless of what happens next, we might well consider to have done away with the so-called "static phase" of Indian football.
Follow Debjit Lahiri on
What Do You Make Of The PLS? Will It Match The IPL? Let us know below
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