Ofequations and annual farce

Till last year, the League had a sponsor in Oriental Bank but even that is missing this time. DSA officials say their expenses run upto at least Rs 1,000 everyday. Though they have been in constant touch with Oriental Bank in this regard, the chances of a sponsorship, sources say, are extremely slim. And, that8217;s hardly surprising, considering the various equations that determine Delhi football8217;s power structure.

Basically, the Delhi Soccer Association has a parallel system with institutions on one side and clubs on the other. Both have voting rights during the DSA elections, held once every four years. Though the official8217; version is different, insiders claim that most DSA committee members, being office bearers in various open clubs, are more interested in furthering their clubs8217; cause.

Then, there is a clause that prevents institutional players 8212; also playing for open clubs 8212; from playing any institutional tournaments while the club league is on.

Moreover, except three institutional teams 8211; State Bank of India, Air Force, and Delhi Police 8212; the others are not allowed to play the Open league. This means the rest get to play not more than five or six tournaments a year. That, in turn, leaves them with little incentive to recruit players on a yearly basis.

Delhi Development Authority, reportedly, has not recruited any new player for more than a decade now. So, almost the entire team that trickles into the stadium is in its late thirties or early forties.

The performance levels of even highly rated teams is rather uninspiring. Take for instance, Punjab National Bank8217;s shock 0-2 loss to Food Corporation of India three days ago. While PNB, who recruited their latest batch in 1994, has players like Bhupinder Thakur formerly with JCT, Viren Meetei, Manoj Bhatt both from Bombay and Imran Ali from Calcutta, FCI had nothing much going for it.

But this trend is anything but one-off. There are surprises almost everyday. 8220;Once they land a job, they don8217;t bother to train regularly,8221; is a comment that is echoed by observers. On the other hand, players say there are no grounds left to train in Delhi.

In any case, DSA is not too willing to merge the Open and the Institutional League like in Mumbai. Call it tradition or inertia, things aren8217;t going to change in a hurry. 8220;If we do that, the charm of the inter-club league will fade away. The Old Delhi crowd identifies strongly with clubs and they will stay away if they see the diluted version,8221; says a DSA official.

A rather weak argument considering that the DSA committee members have a lot more questions to answer. In this year8217;s league, one of the DSA top bosses8217; team Railway Board failed to turn up for all their matches and were finally scratched. In a stronger move, Airports Authority who have been consistent in their absence for matches over the past three years are likely to be disaffiliated.