 Thank you for tuning in to another episode of 420g right here on newsclick.in. Now if you saw our last episode, first and foremost, God bless you. We love you and we love all the love and affection you're showing us. If you did not watch our last episode, for this I'll have to go single camp. What are you doing? What are you kidding? Start watching our shows. We talk about Indian football on a weekly basis. Now what we did in our last episode was, of course, we had two members of the senior women's team, Dalima Chibber and Aditya Chauhan come into the studio and talk about what has been a pretty successful 2019 so far and their goals and ambitions going forward. Now today we're going to do a follow-up to that episode and we're moving a little ahead in time. From 2019, we are now going to be focusing on 2020 because come 2020, India will host the under 17 women's world cup and to talk about where we stand currently in studio with me, our co-host Siddhanthani, also the sports writer for Indian Express Meheer Vasavda who's done an extensive piece on where India stands currently as far as their build-up for the under 17 world cup is concerned. If you can't get his surname correct, this is Meheer Vee, right? And also joining us from Skype is Sharda Agra, senior journalist from Bangalore. Sharda, thank you so much for taking our time and joining us. So since Meheer has all the scoop, I won't talk too much. It's over to you Meheer, first whatever came out in your piece and then we'll start talking about it. I'll put you on the spot. We have 20 minutes. No, so maybe I can start with asking you a specific question. You were looking, of course, in the context of the under 17 women's world cup. So the question is FIFA giving India the right so the chance to host this tournament ahead of a country like France. Is there sort of a stamp on the fact that something is happening in Indian football for women and therefore they have earned the right to host this showpiece tournament? I'm asking a question. No, so basically France has more to do with back room politics. That and also France have hosted a couple of events already. And they're having the World Cup for women in 2019. And there were no other bidders for the under 17 World Cup. So that was one of the main reasons apart from the back room politics. And also from what I see from my point of view, it was also one of the ways for some of the people in the AFF to stay relevant after their term is over. They want to set their legacy in a way and in a very fast track way, in a very artificial they want to create a legacy which they haven't been able to in the 10 years of their regime over here. So I see it from that perspective and not necessarily to develop women's football because if they wanted to do that, they would have done something in the last 10, 12 or whatever years that they've been in. But where do we stand then currently right now? I think 18 months to 18 months. So as we are talking, there are the junior national tournament championships happening. They're taking place in Kolhapur which at this point it is around 40-42 degrees over there. They gave all the states time of 15 days to register their players. Now the problem here is that none of the states have an active youth program. I was speaking to the President of Andhra Pradesh Football Federation who was also, I think in the AFF's finance committee. He was very careful in the words he chose to speak and his point was Where do we get 30 players to send a team for the junior national championships? It was the same problem in most states I spoke to. Sikkim did not send a team because according to their Federation who's also in the AFF Executive Committee I think, he said that You have Mizoram who didn't have enough time to prepare a team for this. My point is you're going to choose your first batch of under 17 World Cup team from here and you don't even know if your best players are going there. Delhi for example, the biggest problem was the exams were clashing with the tournament with the selection trials. So half of the girls did not turn up. I don't know if school exams. So if you knew a little while ago that you're going to have the under 17 World Cup, I'm sure AFF did not come to know with the FIFA press release. You never know. You never know. Yeah, you never know. But I'm guessing they knew a couple of months in advance. They sent out a release to all the state associations about the junior national championships a week after FIFA made this announcement. And then they give them 15 days to select 30 players each. So it is very bizarre all of this. Sharda, can I ask you from again from like a sort of outsider's perspective, do you think that a lot of these tournaments are held or shoved into the calendar only because the federation or the competitions department in the federation is mandated to hold the tournaments and sort of the selection for the national team and the perspectives who will join this World Cup squad for 2020 will be selected by a completely separate mechanism that will happen in isolation somewhere else? You know, it's because of the fact that this World Cup has suddenly come up under 17 World Cup for women, they now need to have at least some kind of a pool of players to choose from. So this is literally, I think, band-aid, little bit of patch-up and let's see what we can get going. There's going to be the Indian Women's League is going to take place after that, after the juniors finishes in Kolhapur. The Indian Women's League is going to take place in Budhiyan. I think this is the 2018-19 sort of league, it's I think the third year or something that's there. So literally this is going to be patch-up, band-aid and all the rest of it because of the fact that this other big event is coming into force next season, next year and then you have to have something behind you to show you what we are doing in terms of grass root development. You know, maybe there are people who are rules about these things that you have to have. The grounds are ready. You know, the grounds are absolutely ready and fine and they like got good facilities or training or hopefully they've all stayed in the same, in decent shape between the last under 17 World Cup and this one. But it's this other stuff, you know, hardware stuff has software is what you need to suddenly rapidly fill in and this is all rapid code writing that's going on. Why you've been speaking to some people that are involved in the setup and things like that and while of course it seems pretty clear that there's no real structure and they are not, it's not a mass participation sport yet. At the same time there's some evidence far from it. Far from it, yeah. But perhaps the same can be said for all sports as far as women or girls are concerned. In this country. Yes. So what anecdotally what we are saying is on social media and stuff like that, lots of handles coming up and large numbers of girls playing some sort of organized football but at a very local, hyper-local level. I don't know if it feeds into a broader system of information sharing or registration or anything of that sort. But like in Mumbai for example or in Maharashtra, Kolhapur is a hotbed. I remember going then maybe five years ago when a sort of Dutch representative squad had come down to play against the Indian women's team and it was phenomenal because 25,000 people showed up to a packed stadium in Kolhapur and they drew they drew one of the games. But the most amazing thing about that was after the match finished the Dutch girls were like they were playing some music and the Dutch girls were like dancing on the pitch for the next half an hour then the Indian girls also joined in because they were like we will play our whole careers in Europe and never see a crowd like this. 25,000 people won't come to see us anywhere unless they go to play the World Cup that's different. So there are some positives. I think there are quite a few positives. It depends on how you look at it. To say that you know I think we all agree with the fact that there is no real system in place. Right? Or if you put a system in place one year before the World Cup for a system to be in place it should be operating for at least six, seven years. So you know how the system works and you know what the end product of that system is. So in one year suddenly the system is not going to be in place. Right? The positives of that the grounds are already ready courtesy the men's under 17 and whatever we've done and courtesy ISL and ILE. We've got good stadiums and grounds and everything so that aspect was there from before. I think the only positive is that this will force you to put a system in place. If it's a top-down approach yes it's a top-down approach but it will force you to put a system in place. It will force you to start identifying talent even if that talent is only 30% of your talent pool. Because if you really speak you didn't identify 30% either. Right? And also the thing is if you're going into this under 17 World Cup with the thought process that our girls will do something. They won't. They won't. We are very far away. Okay? We've all done enough football seen enough football. They won't. But if you're using this under 17 World Cup as a catalyst to build a team which can then serve the senior team in the next 4-5 years and you can get a core 5-6 player core that is serving the Indian team in the next 4-5 years then that is a major positive. Which Aditi also brought up when Sharda asked her about what their sort of aspirations and dreams are for the next few years where she was saying okay now at the South Asian level India is fairly dominant. We won the South Asian Championships 5 times in a row or 5 times and sort of that is established. Now we want to move on to the Asian level and what Pandit is talking about here I think makes a little bit of sense in that it leads up to let's say 2026 like Qatar right? Asian Cup. To the Asian Cup. But I mean it's all well and good when you say ki aisa hu na chahiye but kitna hota hai. I mean this year the women's team has played whatever number of matches they've played is because they were qualifiers. You take last year in the year before that combined they played I think just two matches the whole the whole duration in two years. It was 19 and four two months right now 19 matches. But you count the number of friendlies they have played and those friendlies are because they played the Olympic qualifiers. So you take 2017-2018 and if I'm not wrong they played just two matches. There was this entire phase before the last meaningful tournament they played was the 2014 Asian Games and there they were knocked out even before the opening ceremony. was held. Because the football tournament started and it's not the longer tournament after it starts before. It starts before. So it's not the players it's just that they're not given any opportunity to play whenever they've been given an opportunity they've shown that they can compete at least. And we saw the improvement this time after like at the fag end of this run of 18 games they were jelling much better playing much better. Good quality goals. I just want to jump in here with what we are saying is that this whole lack of people that there is no structure there is no there is no ladder there is no ladder which I keep talking about it's like one favorite bugbear of mine. And so you'll have this world cup you'll have the you have sort of a really good maybe run into the under 17 whatever it is that the Indian women's team however they they perform the under 17 but what happens after that that is the question I think we need to be pursuing as a you know rather than okay up you know if that is the if that is the benchmark at the moment that's where you have to get to no I'm not that what's going to happen after that. Tell us what you're going to put in place after that which is why maybe this I was looking at this Indian women's league they're 14 teams which is it has gone from seven or whatever in the first year seven or six second number to 14 and they told Gokulam send their team and so on so it's what are you going to do after that if you can do something and see what's happened with the under 17 boys as well what have you done after that what have you done to basically take this ahead top-down approach if you're not a fan of it but if it works in a way it has to keep it has to sustain itself after this one big event is gone yeah like with the boys Sharda at least I can say there is some aspect of success there now depends on again how you look at success if you see those under 17 boys Unke at least 5-6 ladke hain who are now slowly slowly making their way into the senior team if they were a part of your under 23 setup then you know that slowly from there they will be progressed to the senior setup and they will be forming the core going forward and they will come together as a core of 5-6 who've been playing together for 5-6 years the biggest difference here is that once they were out of that whole under 17 mode they knew that their lives were set in the way that they had a team where they got fixed monthly salary here once you're out of this under 17 camp like if a girl joins under 17 World Cup camp next month she sorted till October next year but after that A she does not have a club even if she plays in the Indian women's league with 7 teams 14 teams is she going to get paid is she going to get paid I mean even if it's three weeks like right now the system is that some players get paid and some don't it's not a uniform system with the national team they're getting paid 600 rupees per day which is nothing so what is the incentive for them to continue playing I was at the senior nationals in Bhuvaneshwar last year not the one I think it happened back to back in Bhuvaneshwar because Orissa is sort of emerged as a centre for there's a size centre where a lot of the women scamps happen and eastern railways have their base there so they've hired a large number of players so a lot of the Manipuri players who play for the national team are now with eastern with the railways and playing for their teams it really is incredible to see how these groups of women actually mostly girls because by the time they're 23 or so they have to stop a lot of them have to stop playing because that's also part of the reality you finish college and either you need to get a job or you need to get married or whatever it is that the pressures that you face so very careers end really early so it's just groups of girls with like maybe one or two senior players one coach and just trying to somehow manage with extremely meager resources there were suggestions from some state associations that players pay their own way to get to the national's particularly if they wanted to take a flight you know so this is still going on it's the 1980s this is the very 1980s yeah I mean stuff that you might remember from when you started of not of there not being women's lose in the press boxes absolutely absolutely at 19 it's the you pay okay you pay you pay to come you pay for hotel also you buy breakfast only for yeah so I think I think while we say that there are grounds that are good enough to host a world cup at the same time the reality of infrastructure is also that there are grounds where you don't have women's toilets or women's changing or changing rooms and when you are encouraging girls to play in large numbers whatever the case might be particularly when you're looking at young girls who you're getting to play you have to it's a responsibility also to provide a safe environment in which they can do their thing and you know not feel either like they are in a shop window or unsafe or whatever the case is one of the girls I spoke to for my story she was just happy that the playing surface was decent for a for a junior national in Chandigarh and she was ready to overlook the fact that they didn't have a women's toilet over there they didn't have any changing rooms over there so all the players had to practically go back to their hotel or hostel where they were staying every time they had to you know get changed or whatever they had to do so I mean it's just sad that they have to be happy with whatever minimum things there are small small happiness that is what I can understand that because when I used to play nationals for Delhi there was once an instance that our tiktok book was not available so now it's a match we have to go to Kerala in three days Kerala so what we have to do is that the boys have put everything in front of the bathroom and in the 48 hour train and I swear we lost three kilos in that journey only three kilos went there from which where from Delhi to Ernakulam and this is yeah the the 48 hours it's a 48 hour train bro my band was saved there and I was this you know this boy from a Delhi big Delhi school I'm here I'm going to play I'm going there there is a reality the boys are getting compacted they are washing their clothes sitting there and you know everything is happening but how long has it been it sounds like given to a previous create used to not so long ago it sounds like that exactly not now but but since then about yeah again my dad would see no like my point was I can understand where that girl is coming from oh yeah so nice to play you know we guys when we see a good playing surface it's not something that's a given but my take away from this under 17 world cup is very myopic okay my take away is just simply this if we can have the conversation around women's football which we've also been doing you've been doing everyone is doing because there is a world cup upon us if that conversation can continue going on for a year because courtesy that conversation someone who may not be interested in the women's game or who may have wanted to stay away from it might get pulled into it and if we can start putting in even a very small system in place which we don't have yet so if we are on level zero if we can have something to be ready for level one also and of course get a bunch of decent players for the senior team then I am happy man I mean what are you doing all for it because something very interesting I just read it today that happened as you know the NISO Premier League which is seen as like because it's a small state they can organize their own state Premier League they started their first women's Premier League they've just begun and there are seven teams that are playing so maybe it's a good almost template for other people that are other sort of states or cities or whatever that are interested to see how this works I don't think it's huge amounts of money or whatever but it's the same neighbourhood that offer you those men's teams I suppose it's them that are offering the women and it's the same which are a ground only as well as the ground they are fully open now there are two but this is the one the Assam bifers one those guys are really forward thinking they were the first state to have like you said their own league and it was a great story because a televised league and a co- sort of created product between the local between the state football association and the local like cable network so you know it's the kind of partnerships that we are actually talking about grassroots football developing where things are happening at a local level and you don't need a global broadcast giant or you know like some like billions of dollars to run a small simple football tournament but to be honest there are other states are making an effort like we won't really bash them up and say that no one's doing anything but it's just so happens I'd say for example Delhi has an under 13 league and nothing above that Pompey has an under 18 league and nothing below that so I mean they are trying to do something but it's just a half hazard approach haa matlab stop gap hai aapko toda direction leso aapoh toda saklu leso and the thing is that there is nothing central from the AIFF AIFF obviously says that we can't do everything the states have to do something the states are saying that hum kyu kare aapko toda initiative liye na shi corporates are saying ki hum ek maine ke league ke liye kyu hum payise barbat kare it's a very vicious circle that I mean one of those many things that we find ourselves in Indian football if you if you focus primarily only on the team that will play in the under 17 World Cup I think we can pretty much say that this team will also prepare itself much like how the boys prepared themselves it is that which is that you will continuously keep on going on exposure trips abroad to get as many games as you can so say if you have 18 months left the aim should be to get say a certain number of matches by the end of the World Cup say 50 to 60 matches aur uske beechme aap chaar paach aap ne exposure trips bahar karein where you are playing you know teams that are much better than you and now another question is do you need a foreign coach or would you hand the responsibility of the under 17 team to an Indian coach foreign coach ka badal dega ek saal mein mujhe samaj mein hiyaata I am firmly of the opinion that it should remain with an Indian coach because it's not like our girls are going to go out there and really defeat someone I mean what we should be looking for is will the girls be able to score a goal and you know how are them keeping shape during those three games in terms of results I don't think you should really expect anything out of the team yeah I mean I think something like familiarity team composition will make a big difference if you are looking at some a large number of the team being made up of girls from the northeast then it would make sense to get a technically sound technically gifted Indian coach to take charge of that Indian coach no I mean I am saying the point because that there is there is spend that much money on a foreign coach like fazoor large amounts of money if you spend what's the point you know and you are not going to you are not going to win the under 17 for sure what's the point in getting and that's getting out of the group also yeah enough enough there exactly there enough Indian coaches who have the experience now and the tactical acumen and the badges and whatever requirements you need to actually yeah no from all the evidences Floyd Pinto has done a remarkable job with the under 70 team the same team that the foreign coaches had so I mean there is no reason why they the only reason being he had time with them he was given time with them like two seasons now and the reality of his team came out at the end of the second season where the boys started flourishing and then we're saying look at what Floyd is doing I think if you put an Indian coach up for this task and kaho ki athara maini tak aap nahi in ladkiyon ke saath rahena and then you have to continue taking these girls forward for the next four five years then not only are you developing players but you're also developing a coach the coach would be happy to work with these with these girls you have to then have a proper road map and a plan to take them forward you know to have a thing after after your your world cup is over after your big event is over then what are you going to do then set yourself these targets and then the coach can work with them then at least he's got something there has to be that degree of sort of almost micro management of what you're going to do because they are your top down sort of team that you created so then work with them to do to at least get something like the under 17 boys have been able to do say for the past couple of years also so we don't currently have a under 16 or under 17 national team coach no I don't think so Alex Ambrose Alex Ambrose is looking at the under 19 so they don't have a youth structure as such right so it's very happens also they have coaches in place but they don't have players and yeah they don't have opponents so they only play sort of Asian qualifiers yeah whenever something comes up currently there's only one under 16 tournament organized by the federation so that's 10 days of competitive football or 14 days of competitive football in a year now the aim should be to have events in a year from the main association and then the state association also take their owners and do their own little pockets of but like Meheer said yeah it's easy to talk about it but ground reality is very different that he will say why is he not doing it why is he not doing it well to be honest AFF has every right in demanding the state association do their own thing the AFF cannot go to every association and do it not in a country like this not in a country like this we are not 600 so our people are out of that 200 you put in academy you put in academy but but but so but and he won't even change to be honest to be honest even your world cup will change so much so how are these guys not even changing like with boys not even changing much how are these guys going to identify the players who will make up the the like like Meheer mentioned right in the beginning the the nationals are going on right now you then put together say a group of 30 40 girls right and then you keep them for long periods in a camp and in the middle of that you keep going for exposure exposure trips and coming back and the thing is this this process continues till the world cup now what the men's team did was he made his own he made his own camp now irrespective of what someone outside is doing that 45 was not changing for them with the girls I think what they're trying to do is 30 40 they'll keep and if after the first camp someone needs to be shown the way and someone else needs to be brought in that door will always remain open so if someone is taken out doesn't mean the door is close for them you get back into your groove and we try spotting you and if you're again doing well in those tournaments we're going to spot you or whatever but I don't know how you're going to spot in those tournaments when there are no tournaments so that's one of my questions to many people while doing this to you that how are you going to go for the scouting process yeah what's the standard answer I've got no we won't look at no we won't look at you'll have to organize you'll have to tell a state association that we're coming you send your best players for a four day period it could be like a selection trial rather than sort of watching them play a game and then making a list that's all so Mota Mota this is where we stand right now Sharda you have anything more to add on this I was just I mean I agree with what you're saying is that there is this sort of almost vision that you have of creating this team but there's nothing there that's giving you an idea of who's good who's not so you have to do like a selection trial based on basically the the parameters that you do selection trials on in football but again you have to give them events to play you have to give the matches to play because I can look very good at a selection trial if I get kind of can't handle it then what's the point but I need to know that I need to be tested in that way I was looking at this list of the women's league that's going to happen in Ludhiana and there are a couple of interesting teams there there are teams from the Manipur police their sports club CRPF women's football team so in the sense of jobs being there there are obviously these people either it's freshly created or it's always been there and they've suddenly woken up and said arey arey let's let's get this going SSB which I think is services services sports board no SSB is Sashastra Seema Bal yeah it's another paramilitary uh oh yeah paramilitary and then there is Sai STC Katak and Tripura Sports School so you have three or four of these so let's see how that pans out maybe they were young girls they may be not under 17s but still of a particular age you never know you never know yeah that's pretty interesting may you have any final thoughts oh no my final thoughts would be that I mean these guys need to Indian Express yeah I mean that's a good plug I wouldn't do that but no man I think these guys need to stop with that whole top-down approach and they need to go the traditional way and that is going to be a long time I mean thik hai na abhi aap jay says top-down may be aap kut zyada jaldi karneerao anyway it's leading us nowhere you might as well take some traditional ways and stop going for stupid world cups which don't make any sense in long term hmm yeah and they are planning that I mean you look at what what they're planning is yeah I mean they want to host an Asian cup for women's in the next five years six years God knows how they're going to do that I mean it's just it just doesn't make any sense to me you it's event management here event management is the thing huh it's just what is painful and and takes a long time I didn't know it won't work see right management I didn't know their contract with IMG Reliance had that event management clause in it as well this is an under 17 world cup so the other thing is that I guess one of the reasons why the all India football federation now sort of has a representative on the FIFA council is that no there are no takers for these events right unlike a senior men's world cup which is a money spinner not that I mean that those two events also lose money for the country but that's a different discussion but these no one I mean there's no money for these events so essentially India is saying hum karalingi karalingi karalingi common players taxpayers will give us the money so yeah we are hosting this is the Afro Asian games of football 50 crores they are wasting on this when they could have easily spent 5 crores and got some structure in place I mean but yeah I mean as they said like the standard example that from Kushaldas to everyone that keeps on giving us is that agar jy those are those are common game sneakers we wouldn't have improved in Olympic sports very good so we have a lot of medals now and of course we're closing down to China and USA now rapidly the next sporting powerhouse in the making I think on that note we should wrap this up I think on that note it's time for let's football to come into this discussion now and for me to thank Sharda, Meheer, Siddhant everyone thank you so much guys for joining us on yet another episode of 420 grams this is where we stand currently as far as the under 17 women's world cup is concerned 2020 India will be hosting that tournament probably September October September same with the men's basically when the weather is little when the men's September 2020 will be ready to contest in our first ever world cup about that it's going to be a lot of talk but till then make sure you watch an episode a week every week of 420 grams still the 2020 women's world cup begins promise yourself that thank you so much for watching and tell your friends and tell your friends and girlfriends bye bye