When the light went out

Cue five years later to the GCDA Pavilion, PT USha Road, the club8217;s headquarters. In their last match of the current season of the National Football League last week, Kochin lost 0-5 to Tollygunge Agragami. The Southern Light finally went out and down, in the most ignominious fashion, to the NFL8217;s Division 2.

And the path it took on the way down 8212; replete with tales of financial mismanagement and other irregularities 8212; offers another reason, if one was needed, why Indian football will never rise from the cesspool it currently finds itself in.

Among the many who find themselves staring at second-rate soccer is team coach Karel Stromsik. A former world cupper with Czechoslovakia in 1982, Stromsik is understandably bitter. 8216;8216;Players come to me with complaints that they haven8217;t got their salaries for the past four months. Even I received my salary only after exerting a lot of pressure. Money aside, there are no proper training facilities. This cannot be a professional club. It is worse than an amateur club8217;8217;, he says.

FC Kochin was born out of the idea that, though Kerala has produced a clutch of Indian stars, it hadn8217;t thrown up a club on the lines of Bagan, East Bengal or those up the Konkan coast in Goa. The last three decades saw Kerala8217;s rise and rise; the state won its maiden Santosh Trophy in 1973 and a decade later IM Vijayan, Jo Paul Ancheri and Pappachan were national stars.

But the best footballers still plied their trade outside the state, in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. That8217;s when a Central Excise officer decided to set things right. While in Italy as an AIFF observer during the 1990 World Cup, PV Paul met Thomas Kannokadan of Thrissur, who8217;d set up a computer business in Switzerland, and TV David of Perumbavoor, a businessman in Oman.

The three shared one dream: to establish a truly professional club in Kochin.

It took six years for that dream to come true 8212; somewhat. The club8217;s stated objective was to develop and promote football in a professional way and to contribute to the youth and sport development programmes being envisaged by the state and the country.

The administration worked mainly on sentiment, using it as a bait to lure home-grown talent back to Kerala.

A M Sreedharan and former Olympian Odampally Chandrasekhar were the talent scouts who took on the training of youngsters. Meanwhile, the stars rolled in: Vijayan, Ancheri, India captain Carlton Chapman, Raman Vijayan, even Nigerian international Friday Elaiho from Danish club Brondby.

This gave the squad a stability, a blend of youth and experience. To get that perfect mix the club persuaded Scottish coach George Blues, who8217;d once guided Qatar to the final rounds of the World Youth Cup, to take over charge as technical director.

By 1997, the beast was ready to be unleashed. Its inaugural season was nothing short of spectacular; fourth in the National Football League, semi-finalists in the DCM Trophy and that Durand Cup win. The stars shone, the crowds gathered to watch them play and the money kept rolling in, thanks mainly to sponsorship from the UB Group. Then on, it was all downhill. Maybe, as Stromsik theorised, the 8216;professionalism8217; tag became an albatross round the club8217;s neck. 8216;8216;Money was the only criterion which qualified it to be called a professional club. Otherwise, it is just like any other Indian clubs. I think Mohun Bagan, East Bengal or even JCT provide better facilities to players8217;8217;, says Ancheri.

Vijayan agrees. 8216;8216;In terms of facilities, JCT still is the best among the Indian clubs. I don8217;t know why Kochin was labelled as a professional club.8217;8217;

Finances became a major problem, part of a vicious cycle: no success, no money, no talent coming in, no success. The Durand Cup win remained a blip on a bleak landscape; with no additions to the silverware, the sponsors began scaling down. Sankar Ramamurthy, Senior Vice-President Sales 038; Marketing, UB Group, felt that the club wasn8217;t winning any trophies. 8216;8216;There wasn8217;t anything in return from the club. Apart from the Durand Cup in 1997, the club couldn8217;t win any tournament, not even the NFL.8217;8217;

Paul acknowledges the problem denies the charge of mismanagement. 8216;8216;True, there is an acute financial crunch but it has nothing to do with mismanagement. Sponsors are not too keen to extend their support because they are not getting enough publicity in terms of TV coverage. Most of our matches weren8217;t shown on TV.8217;8217;

As the cash flow dried up, the exodus began. Ancheri left, he said, because there was no money. 8216;8216;The club couldn8217;t offer me a decent package, which forced me to join East Bengal. I am a professional and I play for money; even if it8217;s a state team, I can8217;t compromise on money8217;8217;, he says.

The situation came to such a pass that the club looked to its own players for money. Last season Vijayan came to the club8217;s rescue after it failed to clear players8217; dues. It was a 8216;8216;friendly gesture8217;8217;, says Paul, but Vijayan sees it differently. 8216;8216;I had to lend money to him last season. Though I haven8217;t got my dues, he Paul told me that he won8217;t cheat me.8221;

What it boiled down to was that 19978217;s mega-budget team now lies reduced to an average side packed with unfamiliar names.

While some players staged protests over delayed salaries, others simply disappeared. 8216;8216;Jiju Jacob, Martin Mathew, Dinesh Nair, Suresh Kumar, Sunil Kumar and CV Sunny never turned up for training sessions. And I don8217;t know their whereabouts8217;8217;, says Stromsik, who now has precious little to work on. 8216;8216;Current players don8217;t qualify to represent the team. They are a little better than average players and are fit to play only in the third division.8221;

For the footballing fraternity, Kochin8217;s fate comes as a big blow. 8216;8216;It8217;s very unfortunate8217;8217;, says eminence grise P K Banerjee. 8216;8216;I think there was some calculative mistake on their part. They started with a dream but somehow they couldn8217;t hold on to their initial success.8217;8217;

He also believes the management simply failed to cash in on the club8217;s popularity. 8216;8216;And, unlike Mohun Bagan or East Bengal they couldn8217;t even satisfy the sponsors.8217;8217;

Indeed, the implications could be far-reaching. The sudden and rapid decline has got the management to think of disbanding the club. 8216;8216;We will decide at our technical committee meeting about the club8217;s future8217;8217;, says Paul.