The first time I watched live football in a stadium, was a Calcutta Super Division League match between East Bengal and George Telegraph in the early 90s in the Kishore Bharati Krirangan. The stadium, with a capacity of around 10,000, had recently come out of our corner of East Kolkata as a concrete spaceship.
Our neighborhood consisted mainly of people who had crossed the border after the distribution – migrants from East Bengal, who were ruthless optimism and an almost irrational dedication to a football club that bore the name of the house they had left behind. The fact that East Bengal played practically in our back garden had sent the whole place in a frenzy. Everyone wanted to see a young, gravity, defending Bhaichung Bhutia, who was already a teenage heart increase.
Tickets were sold for RS. 10 On the local market, and my father’s favorite vegetable supporters stood at dawn to secure them for him and our shared love for East Bengal.
On the competition day the concrete ramparts were a sea of red and gold, and Bhutia did not disappoint. He scored an acrobatic goal, the only goal of the match. The stadium shook off joy and there was an overwhelming sense of solidarity that I had never felt before in my short decade on this planet.
Sport will do you to that. It comes up with an emotional socialism where the ecstasy of victory is shared equally, as well as the grief when things fall apart. It is probably the only one outside your own life that you can make or break your heart.
But if sport falls in love, it is easy, not staying in love with Indian football. I had felt that beautiful, challenging sense of solidarity as a child who now lives under the constant shadow of decay. Every passing year feels like a slow, silent funeral.
There is no villain, not a big betrayal, but a list of endless small cuts. Every season arrives with a new murmur: that this competition will not survive that this club cannot pay salaries.
The financial model of Indian football is unfortunately broken, where most clubs run on credit and crossed fingers. Since 2000, 19 teams have disappeared in three divisions. The commercial arm of the Federation, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), signed a broadcast deal in 2023 with ViaCom18 – owned by the same parent company – for RS. 550 crore in two years. Every ISL match is worth RS. 1.68 crore (season 2024-25), a stark contrast with the RS. 104 Crore de IPL earns as broadcast income from every game.
Broadcast income – supposedly the financial lifeline of modern sport – hardly drips in. And most clubs and the federation invest very little in youth systems, infrastructure or something that the sport can help grow. The AIFF has reduced its competition budget with RS. 20 Crore, while the Scouting and Grassroots program saw a reduction of 69 percent in 2024-25. In the meantime, FSDL and the broadcasters point to falling viewers – 429 million in season one to 81 million in 2023. But nobody knows it first: the falling interest or the falling quality. It is a situation with chicken and egg without budget for too.
A chaotic football calendar, often drawn or changed at the last minute, and an endemic age fraud problem adds to the misery that drags Indian football down. In the meantime, the national team remains in free fall. It has not won a competitive game since November 2023.
And yet the fans cling to a sport that gives them less and less to hold. But they don’t shout much anymore. They just tolerate.
