In sixes and Sevens

Having managed to break into the top-100 just once way back in the sixties, one would have expected India, currently ranked 135th in world f...

Having managed to break into the top-100 just once way back in the sixties, one would have expected India, currently ranked 135th in world football, to raise the standard of the game in the country. This is precisely what Vision Asia team, led by AFC secretary-general Peter Velappan, pointed out at a recent seminar in the city.

But what we see today is something even such nations as those doing well in the game would want to have a re-think before experimenting: 7-a-side football — a game that resembles soccer but with more freedom to score with no offside rule!

It may sound interesting for the uninitiated. But when the never-before-heard Delhi 7-A-Side Football Association held the junior nationals — with 35 teams in fray, including 4 women’s squad — in Delhi, it raised several questions.

Interestingly though, there was no official word on the whole thing. The national body of the game, apparently headquartered in Raipur (Chattisgarh), is neither recognised by the All India Football Federation, nor the Indian Olympic Association. ‘‘The files are pending, we will get recognition soon,’’ said secretary of the Delhi unit Sanjeev Sharma. But no one in the AIFF or the IOA has heard of any such proposal. ‘‘We have no idea of such association’s existence,’’ said an IOA official.

But P Kondian, the secretary of the 7-A-Side Football Federation of India, says that the national body has both the Asian and world bodies’ recognition. A frantic search on the net led to nothing but a Moss Farm seven-a-side football league in England that caters to women and children, though it has nothing to do with professional football.

Interestingly, the Indian federation also has its ‘‘state units’’ across the country. The state unit coaches, however, admit that there is no organised structure to the whole system.

‘‘We advertise in newspapers for trial, then select players and hold camps for them,’’ said Namdev, coach of the team from Maharashtra and the general secretary of the Maharashtra state association. Even Delhi followed the same method to pick the team.

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The haphazard manner in which the whole exercise had been gone through was visible both on field and off it.

There were teams from Nagaland, Manipur and Tamil Nadu. All the participants had to bear their own travel costs — up to Rs 5,000 for the trip.

Is it worth the trip? ‘‘We wanted to visit Delhi and this was a good opportunity,’’ said most of the players from the north-eastern teams. And how about the game? ‘‘What football, this is just fun,’’ came the answer.