Sad but True.......

While mindless morons spent money watching 'Live Matches' of IPL, basically a meaningless useless piece of corporate domestic games, this little bit of Indian sport went the way of ignorance as usual. No incentive, no infrastructure, total govt. apathy, agriculture ministers only interested in cricket for obvious reasons - in short, another story of neglect and step motherly undignified treatment of other sports in India.......


Shame on Indian Sports Ministery, Indian Govt and bloody greedy power brokers like bastich Sharad Pawar who has failed thousands f poor farmers who have commited suicides by the hundreds a day and yet the fat buffoon cannot look beyond Cricket and it's easy money -



Rs 450 per day, 4 to a room, players cook to cut hotel bill: national football in IPL season

Even as the country struggles to recover from the Indian Premier League hangover, and before players begin to wonder if they are eligible for a share of Texan billionaire Allen Stanford’s English pie, here’s a slice of reality from Indian sports.

The Santosh Trophy, the country’s premier national-level football tournament which ended in Srinagar today with Punjab beating Services 1-0 in the final, was replete with battles of the football kind but it was not just the final score that had players worried.

The daily allowance handed out by the All India Football Federation was Rs 450 a day per player, including boarding and lodging. And teams, obviously, had to do things the hard way.

The Karnataka team checked into the Saleem Guest House on Dal Gate where each room is priced Rs 1,000 per day. “We had to take five rooms for the whole squad, four players to one room,” said Karnataka manager Aslam Khan. “If the boys want to get their laundry done in the hotel, they have to pay for it themselves. Even then the costs go over and above what we are given by the AIFF.” The state association provided each player an additional Rs 100 a day as pocket money.

The Kerala squad, which made it only to the quarter-finals, stayed at the Taj in Srinagar, where the daily tariff was brought down to Rs 800 per day, thanks to a deal with the J&K football association. But the only meal they could afford at the hotel was lunch — for breakfast and dinner, they did their own cooking.

Two teams that had it slightly easier were finalist Services, who stayed at the Army cantonment in Srinagar, and Goa, one of the fortunate sides whose sponsors took care of all additional expenses. The Goa team stayed at the Hotel Shah Abaas (Rs 1200 per day) apart from which players were given an additional daily allowance of Rs 700, a figure that sounds almost extravagant in comparison to the others.

And while the daily allowance has been a grouse for most teams, they aren’t completely happy with the travel arrangements made by the AIFF either. Teams such as Kerala and Karnataka, travelling all the way from the South, had to contend with four-day journeys to reach Srinagar.

“We had to go from Bangalore to Chennai, and from there it took us four days to reach Jammu by train. After that, it was another 12 hours by bus. This is a national meet, and it isn’t for me to tell the AIFF, but it surely could have been made much easier. It’s an uncomfortable ride in 3-tier. We should at least have been given the option to fly from Jammu to Srinagar,” said Karnataka manager Aslam Khan.

Football associations in states where football is less developed — unlike Goa, Bengal and Maharashtra — find it tough to sustain additional costs themselves.

“The development of football is not the same all over India,” said Kerala manager Stanley James, also the vice-president of the Kerala Football Association. “ His team left Kerala on May 31 and reached Srinagar on June 3.

“Because of all these difficulties, many players do not want to represent the state,” says a player on condition of anonymity. “Most footballers are now used to travelling by air (when they play for their clubs). And with all the other problems, this is very discouraging.”

Jagbir Singh, who coaches Punjab, feels they aren’t even close to getting enough. “We need at least Rs 1,000 more as daily allowance, apart from what we get from the AIFF.”

A couple of weeks ago, India coach Bob Houghton said that archaic tournaments like the Santosh Trophy needed to be done away with. Kerala coach Victor Manjila reckons the AIFF is achieving that without trying too hard. “They have to do something, or this tournament is doomed.”

Surely you should be whinging about FIFA as well?

Blame the Information & Broadcasting minister & best parliamentarian of the year 2007 - Priyaranjan das Munshi for the sorry affairs of Indian Football. He has been heading the federation for ages. A site mentions him as President, All India Football Federation since 1988!!! Thats worse than MS Gill who I believe headed hockey federation since 1994 and atleast the Indian Hockey team won a few tournaments off and on

I say, let Pawar/BCCI manage the football federation. Things will only improve.

There is so much FIFA can do. But Indian sports is more a story of apathetic Govt., bureaucratic politics, useless people filling up the numbers in various positions and ministeries, lack of development, infrastructure and management and more for corruption and mismanagemnet for filling up the pockets of most people involved except other than the sportsmen themselves......

The story is much worse in other sports and includes canceling a national training badminton camp a week ahead of the team leaving for an international tournament because shuttle cocks costing a few thousand rupees were not made available citing 'lack of funds'. Of course funds are not an issue when hundreds of freeloaders travel with various Indian teams in Asian Games, Olympics etc to foreign tours all for the purpose to 'study and observe'. It's a different issue that these people outnumber the athletes, their coaches, their support staff even numerically. Funds are never an issue when sports 'officials' stay in 5 star hotels while players are forced to share dirty dormitory rooms by the dozen....

prodigy wrote:Blame the Information & Broadcasting minister & best parliamentarian of the year 2007 - Priyaranjan das Munshi for the sorry affairs of Indian Football. He has been heading the federation for ages. A site mentions him as President, All India Football Federation since 1988!!! Thats worse than MS Gill who I believe headed hockey federation since 1994 and atleast the Indian Hockey team won a few tournaments off and on

I say, let Pawar/BCCI manage the football federation. Things will only improve.

Dude do you think Pawar would have been heading BCCI if it had been another neglected Govt body, down in the dumps, without the current levels of money or prestige involved?

The only reason Pawar jumped on the cricket bandwagon was because the business of cricket, the money pots, the exposure and power charts and the money structure was all too well established and to the tune that satisfied both his hunger for power and money. Bees to the Honey. Rest assured he will never take interest in sports that need his 'midas touch' because there is no gold for him in it...

The absence of all the big stars to the SAFF cup (which we lost to bloody Maldives in the final, thanks to too many injuries), probably clinched it for AIFF. Why even pretend to care if the big names aren't playing? Thankfully things aren't quite as bad at club level.

How much input does the Government have in sport in India?

Most of the fringe sports (read non-cricket), except maybe football, hockey and tennis, almost entirely depend on the government for their survival. And the government has always had a bit of a meh attitude to sports (dare I say, like the most of India).

JKLever wrote:How much input does the Government have in sport in India?

Barring cricket, in all other sports and this is the chief reason why we don't do well in them. Politics and Corruption. Money is rarely allocated as per needs and when they do, it gets wasted in useless expenditure for the benefit and pockets of corrupt officials while the players beg and borrow for their most basic needs like for example playing kits.

Shouldn't this all be on the laxative thread?

The problem is the fan base. If they supported other sports those sports will prosper.