Missing FIFA
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: December 10, 2013 -
Though described by many as a 'dream come true' for India to play host to the under-17 World Cup Football in 2017, the decision of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international governing body of association of football, futsal and beach soccer, to award the tournament to India ahead of South Africa, Ireland and Uzbekistan, may not be so surprising to those who have been closely watching the direction to which the wind of change in world football has been blowing so sometime now.
Currently occupying 148th position in the FIFA ranking among 207 members and 27th in Asia, Cricket-crazy India has never been a force to reckon with in the domain of world football.
The only time that India managed to find a place among the top 100 FIFA ranking countries was at 94th place in February, 1996.
However, FIFA has always been concerned about the rapid decline of Indian football at the world stage.
Moreover, India's huge market has been a matter of great attraction for sponsors associated with FIFA. So, FIFA was determined to bring back India into the elite fold.
This was more than evident from the fact that during a visit to the country last year, President Sepp Blatter eulogised India as the "sleeping giants of world football," and encouraged to make the bid.
The decision to award the tournament was also delayed twice in the past one year to allow India to submit its bid.
From all these manoeuvrings, it was clear that India had little chance of losing the bid all along despite its unpreparedness in terms of infrastructures and other usual legalities.
Nonetheless, India has a lot to gain from playing host to the Under-17 FIFA World Cup in 2017.
Apart from the fact that this would be the biggest soccer tournament ever on the soil of India, the event is expected to bring the excitement of football back into focus in this cricket-mad nation.
A tournament which is to be played by 24 nations including the hosts for over a period of two weeks could very well change the image of the game in the country.
However, the sad part of the story is that, though acknowledged as the 'powerhouse of sports' in India and has been producing many footballers of International standard, Manipur is most likely to miss the rare opportunity of hosting even a match of this historic football tournament, simply because there is no stadium of international standard for hosting such grand tournament of FIFA in the State.
New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Guwahati, Margao, Kochi and Bangalore are in the running as host cities of the matches.
Among these proposed host cities, there are only two stadiums in India at present, one in Delhi and the other in Chennai, which can stage FIFA approved matches.
Of course, there are still time, 3 years to be precise, for making necessary arrangements like the construction of the required stadiums to be fit for hosting FIFA matches.
In such a case, Manipur could very well make a move for inclusion as one of the match venues.
But this could be possible only when the Government of Manipur and other football organisations in the State joined hands together and made the right approach right away.
Being politically-frenzy people as we are, all of us might be all agog to the turbulent political see-saw happening around us, but let's think over how Manipur would live up to its name as the 'powerhouse of sports' if the dream of hosting at least one FIFA match in the State is realised.
This would be worth more than winning thousands of election in our lifetime. Let's think over this.
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