HT Kick Off: The darkest hour

You put up occupy football game come out of the sublime Court but you cannot take the Supreme Court out of football. As the season splutters and stalls, that’s where most of the action is. And while argumentative Indians articulate their version of how the sport should be run, clubs suspend operations.

That is how things have been since last Friday when All India Football Federation (AIFF) found no one was interested in running Indian Super League (ISL). The process to seek bids was monitored by the Supreme Court and based on the new AIFF constitution it had approved and a Request For Proposal was prepared by a firm of international renown.

Do that and the country’s top league, allegedly given to a private party for a pittance, will find its true value. That was what some litigants had argued. It was also their belief that the men’s top league should be the property of the AIFF with the commercial partner having way less sway, so what if they were arranging the moolah. There’s no reason to assume they have got their comeuppance even as the possibility of a distress sale of ISL’s commercial rights looms large.

Usually blamed for everything, including the weather as a former general secretary would say, AIFF has little role in all this. True, its president was on the bid evaluation committee but, then, there was no bid to evaluate. And yet it is on them to start the season which is why they are looking to go back to court. The players and staff at clubs have an even lesser role in this. And yet, they are the ones suffering.

It is alright for players to amplify the same message on Instagram. But even as it conveyed their anguish, the message was also important for what it didn’t say. No one spoke of what happens to the clubs, players and staff in I-League, a competition AIFF, in the absence of a commercial partner, may find difficult to run.

If there is a “little light” after players “found themselves in a very dark tunnel for long” it is that players and clubs are in AIFF’s corner in requesting the Supreme Court to get the top league started.

A bit of light may have also come Khalid Jamil’s way after Ryan Williams joined the senior national team’s preparatory camp for the Asian Cup qualifier away to Bangladesh.

Williams, whose maternal grandparents are from India, surrendered his Australian passport and Jamil will hope he can be the No. 9 India desperately need. “We now have a No. 9 we can rely on. I know him, I hope he wins the dressing room. And I hope he wins the heart of Indian people,” Sunil Chhetri told HT in an interview after ending his India career for the second time.

Williams was one reason why Chhetri said he had his best ISL season last term since 2017-18. Being part of a good team means the opposition’s attention is not on one player, he said. “It increases the chance of you scoring. If the opponent thinks, Ryan can score, or Edgar (Mendez) or Jorge (Pereyra Diaz), you get a little bit less attention.”

The player who has represented Australia in a friendly once can also mentor the young forwards Jamil has chosen. Irfan Yadwad, Mohammed Sanan, Vikram Partap Singh and Rahim Ali do not play for Williams’s club so using the time with him wisely at the camp can help them sharpen their tools.

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