 Hello and welcome to a very special episode of 420grams here on newsclick.in, we have for the first time since this show has become a video format, Baichung Bhutya, the O.G legend of Indian football with us here today, he was of course the top scorer and the highest capped Indian footballer ever till Sunil Chaitri took all of those things away from him. Baichung, thanks for coming in, it's good to have you in studio. We're talking of course about the state of Indian football and how things have developed since the 10 or so years since you stopped playing the sport professionally, you've of course still been engaged with it in various different ways through United Sikkim, the Football Players Association of India as well as in various capacities with the Football Federation. Today is a big day, the Executive Committee is meeting to decide on the way forward. So first question, how do you see things having moved let's say over the past five, six years since the coming in of the ISL and all of this is going on? No, I think when at the current state I'm not aware of what's happening because for the last one, two years I've not really been connected with football, I've been completely out of it, so I don't know exactly what's happening right now, though I'm now keeping a bit of track about what's happening. But yes, I've been very fortunate enough to have worked in all India Football Federation as an advisor to the Federation as a technical chairman of technical committee as a chairman. So I've had that experience working in the Federation again towards the club side, I own a football club that went to play for ILEEC for two seasons, I still own a club United Sikkim. So yeah, and then obviously when ISL came in I did have an opportunity to work with ISL for one, two seasons and also work with television. So having got that experience of all the sides, so you know everybody's got their plus and minuses and their points and plus, positive and negative to the side of it. But I think overall, yes, during the last five years, before three, four years when I was working as Football Federation, we had a complete plan as a technical committee chairman and with the Federation as an advisor. We managed to plan, you know, the entire structure of Indian Football and my main challenge when I was working with the Federation was to get the structure right. Obviously it was quite a difficult task, which I think still it's not yet properly, you know, done at the moment. I think the biggest challenge for Indian Football right now is to get the structure right. And once you have it, I think then everything will follow. But we did manage to work with the national team in our challenges where when I joined in as an advisor and technical committee chairman, we were ranked on 76. So we wanted to get Indian team in top 100, which we achieved in, you know, two, three years. So a lot of things technically we managed to work, but there are a lot of challenges which obviously had to be done, which obviously the tenure came to an end as well. But I'm sure I think overall we need to really look at the development of Indian Football and there are various parties to making it happen. And I think all the parties should actually keep a priority of keeping Indian Football first and trying to take the game forward. And I think that should be the priority. And if that can be the priority, I'm sure there are a lot of challenges, but it's not a difficult challenge or something which is not, you know, it's impossible to solve. It is possible to solve. But everybody will have to give and take kind of situation and bargain on those points. So I mean, maybe getting a little more specific in terms of what some of these solutions are. I think one of the big conflicts today is that we have two leagues, of course, the ISL and the ILEE. One was the old National League in which you played and all the big old clubs of India play in. And the other is a closed private league. So how do you think these two can come together and coexist in a manner that is, like you said, beneficial for the overall structure of Indian football? So I think you need to have a long term plan. You need to have a time period for what you want to do it. And I'm sure ISL, ILEE and the Federation and all of us were involved with football would want a bigger, better league and a longer league. And I think there are challenges, obviously, ISL and football development were working with ISL, I think has, you know, has contracts with the ISL teams. So and same with Federation and ILEE as well. So I think if you have a long term plan, have a deadline to it and say, I mean, certain in this number of years, we would want to have this kind of league, you know, it's okay to have one league, which is the premium league with more teams and then have a lower division league, which is there, which I think Federation is planning as well. And I think recent statement of Mr. Praful Patel in the next two, three years, we will be able to solve it is a welcome statement because I think that's where, you know, if you have a long term, say two, three years, we're going to do this, then everybody's preparing from now on to see that, you know, the structure in that way. So at the end, I think you need, you need a longer league. You need more teams in the Premier League, whether it be ISL, ILEE or any name, anything. I think it's just the name. And then you need to have relegation and promotion in every league because for every club to come in today, I think, you know, all the clubs that are running in ISL, ILEE are having challenges in terms of sponsorship. So I think for football to really generate revenue is, you know, it's not only through sponsorship because a lot of the clubs around the world don't really make revenue out of sponsorship. They make a lot of revenues out of producing, bringing out real talent from, you know, from the grassroot level. And that's how a lot of clubs survive in England and in Europe and clubs and in South America as well. And that is the format, I think, which we'll have to look into it because if the club starts investing and producing their own footballers, then I think the quality of the players, the quality of the game as well as business of the game is going to come up. So for that, you need to really have, you know, the structure has to be right, the leagues has to have, you know, a relegation and promotion. And that's how I think more competition, more challenges, I think that's how the game is going to go. Everyone stays on their toes. If you can give us an idea, in your opinion, for a country the size of India and with the numbers that we have of A football clubs and B now growing number of football fans as well. And the game is being followed also in a more pan India way than it used to be in the past, perhaps. So what is what do you think would be a good number of clubs to have in this top tier? Whatever, like you said, whatever we call it, that's not important for us, at least. No, I think for a country like India, I guess minimum 20 teams is really required for a top league. Even, you know, a small country like England has got almost 1920 league in Premier League. But obviously, you need to look at the cost factor also towards it, because it's not easy for a game like football in India to generate that kind of sponsorship and revenue. I think there are ways to try it out, because if things are not working out, there's nothing wrong in trying something new. And if that does not work, try and come up with alternative plans. So, you know, like in US, you've got Western and Eastern conferences, you could even try and divide the entire top layer of league into four zones and have, you know, the league played in those areas to save revenue. And then the best of two or three clubs can come and play the entire, you know, come and play again a league, you know, for the complete, as a national level. So I think there are a lot of formats that can be worked out for, you know, for the, to make the competition much better, to make more involvement of the players. But I think for us, the challenge is right now is to make sure that we create that culture, you know, football culture in, in rest of the country as well, because I think if you can create that culture where kids are waking up and just wanting to play football, whether it's inside the room or whether, you know, or on a ground, I think that culture has to be created and that is going to be more challenging. So if we can have, you know, like today, if you look at, if you compare Indian football and South American football in terms of infrastructure, facilities, culture, weather, I think it's a bit similar. It's just that football is so big in South America, all the kids are just wanting to play because there's so much of culture, you know, and anywhere you go, the kids are only seeing people talk about football or discussing football, playing. So even small area, small street side, you know, the kids are just playing. I think we need to develop that. And until and unless, because you don't, you don't only require, I think South America and African countries have really proved that you don't also require so much of, you know, it's not at the end. It's not only about money that can produce players. I think today, if you look at Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, you know, smaller countries in South America, or also, you know, are producing great players, not by spending what the Man United are spending in the grassroot or Ajax are spending, they still have been able to produce. So I think that kind of culture, that kind of environment has to be created. So you've been running the Baichung Bhutia football schools now for for a long time. And you've now got more than 3000 kids that are signed up that are coming for training. How do you see the attitude this culture? Is it coming in to focus a little bit? How are parents sort of getting into the act and are more kids coming out to play football? Yes, I think today, football is the most highest watched sport in India for the age of under 12 or under 14. And that's the fact I think even the data show it. And if you look at the kids today, you know, especially kids around the age of 14, most of the kids would be knowing football. Obviously, it's sad that they follow a lot of European football, all football, not much of Indian football. But still, I think they're following football and they're wanting to play. So I think the popularity of the sport is definitely grown. And with even Baichung Bhutia football schools, we've got a lot of kids coming and playing. For us, the bigger bigger challenge when I started BVFS was to make sure that you know, you want kids to come and play. It's not necessarily you would want to be a professional player coming to BVFS. Obviously, we want to create professional players out of Baichung Bhutia football schools. But if not that as well, we want kids to come and play and at least stay fit and healthy. And also I think football is one spot that can really teach kids to it's a it teaches you way of life. And it really helps you in your day to day life when you become adults. So I think that really helps with the sport. And I think that is the reason why our main challenge was to make many kids come and play. And at the same time, if there are, you know, talented, good players, we show them, you know, give them that platform and to guide them to their dreams of becoming professional players and which we've been doing in the last seven years of by, you know, 10 years of almost 10 years of BVFS. We've started Indian football foundation, which is our foundation. Through that, we give a lot of scholarship to kids who are from, you know, humble background and were highly talented kind of thought, you know, to come and join BVFS. So we've got at least 30, 40 kids through those scholarship and almost eight, nine of my boys have gone on to play for India in different age group. And recently three months ago, two of my under 16 boys, one from Meghalaya and one from Morissa went on to play under 16 India. So, you know, that is what we want to enter. I think we are a little different from a lot of academies here, you know, especially the big names from Europe clubs have come here started. I think it's good. The clubs are teaching, but here for us, we are different because it's just not about also coaching. If the player is talented, we can guide him to fulfill his dream of playing for India and playing for ISL and ISL clubs. And that I don't think any academies and football schools in India, name it any big European clubs can do that. And I think that's only where BVFS by Chimputia football school have been doing it and will continue to do it and guide players to become professional players and support them and help them till the time, you know, they have good contracts and good people to look after them. So just coming to the national team, of course, now there's a very high profile coach in the form of Ego Stimach, who's come in the World Cup bronze medalist with Croatia and also reasonably well respected coach. He's got his task cut out for him as we clearly saw from the game the other day. But one of the I think key sort of things that came out of that game and Stimach himself mentioned it that the players who are in the senior national team are getting maybe 20, 30 games competitive fixtures in a season. And that's nowhere close to enough. I mean, there are some figures of how many minutes some of the some of the boys have played and it's nowhere close to the kind of I mean, so just I think I'm glad he's taken it out. Imagine when we played for India when I started my debut for India in 1995, we played only five to six games the entire year. And there were times we only played the Olympic qualifiers in the World Cup qualifiers and and unluckily if you manage to get big teams like Japan or Korea, you played two matches the home and away or one match and you're out and your entire one year just playing two match for India has gone. So now if you look at the number of matches the international players are playing at least they're playing 20, which obviously the coaches complaining is not good enough. But they're playing quite a lot of matches because you know, within last one month I've just seen India play already six, seven matches and now with the intercontinental they're going to play quite a bit. So I think at the end it's important, yes, to play more matches. But for a coach, what I was hearing and seeing his interview has been has been you know, he's been obviously no matter how good a coach is I think for him if you don't give him good quality players it'll always be difficult for him to produce, produce results and we've been hearing it through his interview that is really struggling to find defenders and strikers, which is genuinely a issue for right now for Indian football. And that's the reason why I think for us right now is to produce good quality players. That was that is a main focus and when I was advising the Federation as well, you know this grassroot football for the kids was very, very important and we were trying to also make sure that through Federation to also pressurize a lot of state associations and district football associations, associations to work because at the end of the day no matter what policies you make in Federation or what all schemes or what all tournaments and things you do for bringing up football and all the players are going to come from state and district. So Federation can't produce players, players are going to come from different states and district and until and unless you don't have state associations and district associations really working, then it becomes very difficult to bring in players. And again now because I work in Sikkim Football Association, I'm one of the members there and I know what challenges against state association. So I think it's important for the Federation also to guide the state associations because a lot of state associations today are lacking in that knowledge to really take the game forward in terms of organizing grassroot football, organizing your own league and to some of the big states today like you have states like UP, you have states like Uttarakhand, Himachal does not have a proper league. You know Rajasthan where football is still big. I feel UP has got huge talent. You go to Madhya Pradesh I think they are having challenges and having their own league. So until and unless you don't have your own league for seniors, forget the grassroot. So when and how you're going to bring up players. So that has been a challenge and I think that's where I think the Federation, the state associations will have to work and till the time we don't produce good quality players then we'll keep having the best of coaches working for the national team struggle to really get results because you don't have good defenders now. After Sunil retires after few years, you don't have a striker to replace him. So I think for us right now the biggest challenge is to also make sure that from the grassroot we're producing that quality players and I think under 17 World Cup did bring quite a lot of buzz about the grassroot football because we were hosting under 17 World Cups at that time. The focus was so much on the grassroot football to promote and we did quite a lot. But once under 17 World Cup is over we're not seeing that grassroot football program which was there to have taken a bigger straight which is I think a bit sad. So talking about also this expanding player base and of course things are not going perhaps at the pace that we had envisioned they might but still growth is happening in one area in which I think we've seen a lot of growth recently is in women's football. The women's World Cup just finished and that was the most watched women's World Cup ever and a lot of media interest also a lot more than there has been in the past. In India the women's national team has been getting more exposure more opportunities to play games and we can see how they are improving as well. At the grassroots level what is your sort of take on girls and women getting into the sport and in terms of what kind of structure needs to be created for women to have opportunities. I think women's football in India has got use potential and I think slowly lot has been put in by the federation and also few state associations. I think we need to encourage more girls to come and start playing football because I have BVFS Baichung Bhutya football schools and it's open for the girls as well and what we really see and which is quite saddening is that number of girls coming in really training and playing football is quite less which I expected to do much more. So we need to really encourage lot of parents to make the girls come and play football as well but at the same time you also need to give that space platform and then create that environment and because I have two young daughters and they are quite keen but I think the school and the place where especially where they are studying, even there as well we are challenging to challenges are there for them to just go and play with other girls they don't get many other girls to play football and school does not also push so much into girls football. So there are challenges in that way but I think women football definitely has got huge potential. In fact, I've been one of the most vocal about pushing women's football. Again, you know when I was with the Federation working as an advisor, we may we wanted to create women's football academy in Manipur and during that time Scott was technical director. I along with Scott flew off to Manipur met for football. We flew off to Meghalaya also to make sure that there is space and create an academy for women's football for the age of under 16. There was sincere effort which we wanted because we felt that it has huge potential. Even when I worked for a year with Vedanta Sesha football academy in Goa as an advisor there. The first thing I told them was to create a women's league in which I think Vedanta is created a women's league in Goa now. It's one of the most successful league and that's happened. So I think we need to push it further. Obviously it is challenging because again when it comes to organizing tournaments you need funds and you need you know you need finances to come in, sponsors to come in and it has been a challenge but I think somehow we'll have to keep pushing it and I feel that you know if the sports department in government of India can come together and work with federation to push at least one academy for the football federation under 14 or under 16 then I think it can be the start. I think also with the India is now going to host the under 17 women's world cup so that will be another hopefully an added push although I don't know if we have enough time to give these girls enough sort of training and playing time to get to that level where they're competing with the rest of the world. But given time do you think it's a more achievable when we talk about India's world cup dreams? Do you think it's a more realistic dream? Because I'm sure the way things are going they'll expand the women's world cup from currently 24 to 32 teams just like they're expanding the men's from 32 to 48. So do you think it's a more realistic dream for India to reach the women's world cup finals? And do you think that will happen before the men's team gets there? I think realistically yes women's team has got a better chance than men's team to really qualify for the world cup not because of anything else but I think the men's football the competition is very very difficult because from Asia you've got only three teams qualifying for the Asia Cup or sorry for the world cup and you have almost 50 50 plus countries playing it and out of 56 or 60 countries in Asia I think 80% of the countries that has football as their number one sport and the kind of investment and time they give it to football is much is 100 times much more than India. So it becomes very very challenging even if you don't need to look for anywhere far you know you look at South Asia itself if you're looking at your neighbor Nepal number one sport is football you look at Bhutan number one sport is football you look at Maldives the number one sport is football and you know it's challenging and then you go to a better countries like Thailand Singapore Malaysia where football is so big and then you know to compete in that level is going to be very very challenging. So you'll have to really you know get get your structure your grass root as good as any any other top you know Asian countries like Japan or South Korea to produce that whereas women I think those challenges are still lesser you know you don't have entire Gulf countries really participating in women's World Cup qualifiers whereas for men you have Gulf countries that are like Qatar UAE Bahrain Saudi these guys are the highest pender investors in football today. So the challenges are difficult. So yeah I think that way if you look at that I think women's football is definitely got more chance but I think we need to also put in double the effort what we've been doing right now. Finally by elections out of the way what next are we going to see you in a more active football role again because it's no football I've always been elections are not elections I have my football by Chumatia football schools which we've been doing very very well touch it in the last 10 years and today we are the biggest grass root football program in India. I have a semi-professional football club which has been there for last 15-20 years in Sikkim. We played iLeague we've been state league champions for number of times last two years we've been continuously state league champions and we've been producing players from state as well so that's always going to be there and that will continue. Yes apart from that obviously we feel that sometimes it's important for sports person who's really done everything through hard work, sincerity and with pure I think dedication to you know play the sport and achieve whatever you achieve is through your pure you know sincerity, hard work and dedication and these are things can be brought into politics in India because today sad thing is I don't I won't say everyone but we need good politicians who are sincere to work for the betterment of the country and sadly we don't see lot of them with that interest as well. I think we need people with good principle, honest and sincerity is what we require and that is a sad part and I think people in India if you're not aware of it then you'll always have the bad ones ruling and making policies for you so we need good politicians to come in obviously to say it's easy to really do it is difficult but I'm sure I think so with time you will start getting good honest, clean, sincere politicians who are going to do for the welfare of the people and for the country. Fair enough. Well, I will wrap up this episode on that note. Thanks so much by for taking the time. Thank you. Always great to see you. Thanks for watching. We'll be back again next week with another episode.