There are lot of theories on what is ailing Bengal football. Let’s get some facts on the table today. All over the world football or soccer in particular and sports in general are an ingrained part of their culture. It was the same in the case of Kolkata and Bengal as well. But in recent years everything has waned apart from the enthusiasm for the sport. Let us get to the bottom of some ground reality and put some lights on the actual happenings.

Bengal had a proper nursery league till recently which has gone defunct this year. Though last year Athletico De Kolkata had adopted the nursery league with much fan-fare from the IFA. It has no fixture, no infrastructure, no planning and no vision. IFA the governing body for football in Bengal is riddled with factionism and nepotism. ATK and another club belonging to one of the vice-presidents of IFA got inducted into the third division of the Kolkata league directly after paying around 10-15 Lakhs for each team. ATK never got promoted to the second division.

Athletico De Kolkata a so called professional team with quite a sound financial background has no proper infrastructure, training grounds, football schools all the year down. They simply just do not take a set format seriously at the moment.

The biggest bane for Kolkata and Bengal football has been its administration right from the Big Three to the lowest teams in the lowest leagues. Most of the club teams do not have ground to practise, no basic infrastrusture except for a tent at the famed Kolkata Maidans. None of the so-called officials are interested in the well-being of football at any level. Rampant age fraud, match fixing happens across the different tiers.

Everyone around the world grassroot development, nurturing of talents are given paramount importance and the biggest clubs and governments spend the most money on scouting, nurturing young talents at a tender age. The clubs are littered with bickering and politics and most of the officials do everything to survive and sustain themselves on their ‘Chair of Power”, giving a damn about the ground reality and situation of the state of football in the “Mecca of Football”.

Bengal has a lot of AFC and FIFA licensed coaches but they are never given a chance with any of the clubs as the football system currently prevalent are afraid of any new ideas or ground-breaking innovations in the game as sometimes it do take time to engrain a new philosophy or idea ina team.

Footballers act like mercenaries as most of them after their initial struggle prefer joining hands with the officials to survive and earn their bread and butter any which way possible. Can we blame them? I guess not. Same goes with the referees and other match officials.

Talented footballers come up every year but are thrown by the wayside after a couple of unconvincing performances and these are not the big clubs I am talking about with their so called fan pressure. Established Maidan coaches and officials take cut money and other favors from the players in return of getting them a contract with any of the clubs plying their trade in any tier of the Kolkata leagues.

Nurturing of football talents worldwide starts at the tender age of 6-8 with proper nutrition and education along with football. In India in general and Bengal in particular parents and stake holders take it as a past time nothing more.

The positive side to all this negativity is that there are few parents, coaches, administrators who work silently and trying their best without any support from anyone to bring up talent. We should get all these people more under the spotlight rather than giving useles people glorification by our hatred or love. The focus should be on bringing out the next big thing from Bengal and India and sustaining that talent for the long run.

I believe the biggest stake-holder in any sports are the supporters and fans. We should be asking us that question first are we doing enough to see India to be a football super-power? Except being piggybacks on some small successes and trying to prove who is the better and bigger supporter do we contribute in any other way?

Let’s get to the media houses and their half baked stories. We in Bengal have hundreds of regional news and entertainment channel showing all kind of nonsenses possible 24 hours a day but not sports and we claim to be a sports loving state. Media has a huge role to play which they never play due to their allegiance.

Grass-root level programs are absolute zero even for the big three Mohun Bagan, East Bengal and Mohameddan Sporting as they are busy playing blame games, politics and what not. Basically everything apart from football.

Academies and football scholl made by the Big Three of Kolkata football are either in tatters or are a non-starter. East bengal clubs academy which was started with huge fan-fare sometime back has still not been able to start due to lack of ground permission from the Bidhannagar Corporation. Mohun Bagan SAIL academy just have their name on the billboard at the moment nothing else. The football schools do get conducted on every Saturday and Sunday at the club grounds but we have doubt about their effectiveness. Though at one point of time MBSA did produce some great talents from the academy. Mohameddan Sporting don’t think still has an full fledged academy maybe a couple of football schools which hardly yield results.

Mind it none of these are because of lack of funds as most of the top officials in these clubs are worth atleast a few crores and enjoy all kind of facilities and perks from international and national football organisations and state and central governments. IFA academy as well is anon-starter, the state government football academy in Khardah is also a non-starter though the coaches in-charge of operations are getting paid their salary and quite a hefty amount as it is for not doing nothing.

Politics, unscrouplous elements, muscle power in everything has lead to this. Can you imagine in various academies kids come along with recommendation letters from politicians, government officials and other top officials to get selected. This can happen only in India. Even in sports we have a quota system and “Sifarish” system and let’s be clear it is happening for many years now and not started recently. So

people hear trust their networking more than their talent. The end result is Indian National football team has a world ranking of 162 with a second largest population in the world.

We do have a big names involved in this who are proijected as the so-called Messiah’s of football and officials of every hue and cry are involved. Only the biggest stake-holder of sports can change this that is the fan themselves by having a strong and direct say.

Guys the question and argument has been put forward to you and to all the supporters now. If football is in danger in this country then unfortunately none of your favourite clubs will exist in sometime.