Uncovering India’s Football Talent Disparity: A Closer Look at Richard Hood’s Research

LIKE HIS predecessors, FIFA president Gianni Infantino was left searching for answers during a visit to India in October 2022. “It’s a country of more than 1.3 billion, so there must be enough talent in India,” he remarked.

It wasn’t the first time a direct correlation was made between the country’s burgeoning population and its sporting success, or the lack of it. Seen through this prism, India’s repeated failure to find 11 world-class footballers has mystified observers at home and abroad.

However, a new study has some answers.

Research conducted by Richard Hood, UEFA ‘A’ and AFC Pro licence coach and former head of player development of All India Football Federation (AIFF), has revealed that in a sprawling country of a billion-plus people, over 65 per cent of the elite-level footballers hail from only five states – Manipur, Mizoram, West Bengal, Punjab and Goa — whose total population, as per the 2011 Census, was approximately 12.43 crore.

These are the male players — a total of 1,112 — who have played for India in the junior and senior national teams, and the top two divisions of the domestic leagues in the last 22 years.

To further extrapolate this data, Hood’s analysis showed that nearly 90 per cent of India’s footballers have hailed from nine states and one city – Greater Mumbai, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Meghalaya and Sikkim in addition to the five states mentioned above — whose collective population was a little over 25 crore according to the 2011 Census. In other words, about 20 per cent of India’s population contributes to 90 per cent of its best footballers.

The tiny states of Manipur and Mizoram have contributed most to India’s player pool, accounting for almost 31 per cent of elite-level footballers in the country, followed by West Bengal (13.55 per cent), Punjab (11.46 per cent) and Goa (9.71 per cent).

In addition, of the 152 players who have played for India since 2002, almost 80 per cent came from just six states and one city (Greater Mumbai), with Punjab leading the chart.

So, if one were to draw India’s football map, there would be a giant hole in the middle, indicating that the world’s most popular sport has made virtually no inroads into the densely-populated Hindi heartland.

Hood underlined that the pattern in India is not different from most countries, including France, Argentina and Brazil, where a handful of pockets produce a majority of players.

However, for a country that has a poor scouting system and struggles to form a team that can beat a war-ravaged nation like Afghanistan, Hood hoped the research could help “identify areas that require targeted interventions”. “This could lead to more strategic talent identification and development efforts, tailored to leverage unique strengths and address the specific challenges of different regions,” he noted.

The project is aimed to examine the “birthplace effect” in Indian football. It looks at how “a range of environmental, social and infrastructural factors, such as access to quality coaching, facilities, and competitive opportunities, as well as socio-economic and cultural aspects” have encouraged or hindered sporting participation.

The influence of a player’s place of birth and the impact on the game was measured not just by studying the participation numbers at an elite level, but also by analysing the number of minutes each footballer has played in the last two decades.

Studying the game time helps in understanding whether a player is getting an opportunity or if he is simply there to make numbers. One of the biggest criticisms of India’s domestic league is that the homegrown players, especially in key positions like forwards, don’t get enough playing time, which results in them struggling for form while playing for the national team.

The analysis of 22,65,015 minutes played by Indians in the top two domestic competitions — the Indian Super League (ISL) and I-League — as well as the men’s national teams (senior, under-23, under-20 and under-17), highlights some interesting facts.

* Almost 80 per cent of the players who clocked maximum game time while playing for India since 2002 belong to just seven states. Punjab leads the pack when it comes to actual game time with the national team, with its players accounting for 16.69 per cent of the total minutes played.

* Players from West Bengal and Goa, the two traditional football hubs, have witnessed a sharp fall in playing time. At their peak, footballers from West Bengal dominated the time on the field in India colours, clocking 36.3 per cent of the playing minutes in 2006 World Cup qualifiers. In the ongoing campaign for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, that number has fallen to just 5 per cent. Similarly, Goa’s players accounted for nearly 30 per cent of match time in 2004, but are now down to 0.4 per cent.

* Players from Kerala have got zero playing time in the junior-most national team (Under-17). Manipuri players have hogged the minutes in this age group, accounting for 38.54 per cent of the minutes.

* In the premier division of club football, players from West Bengal are most in demand in terms of game time, followed by Manipur and Punjab.

* Manipur and Mizoram underscore their status as the sport’s homeground, producing more players than any other state who have made debuts in ISL and I-League (157 and 130, respectively).

2024-04-14 02:33:13
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