They fill the cinema screens, run trading empires, plot the backroom strategies of high-tech business moguls. But in the real spotlight of world competition they are hardly to be seen. There are more than a billion people in India, yet barely eleven of them can play world-class football. After a 7-1 drubbing by Saudi Arabia this month, India has been demoted to joint 136th place, together with Yemen, in the Fifa world rankings. Indians may stitch footballs for the world; but they have yet to embrace the beautiful game.
The issue has now become a matter of state. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, is visiting Brazil and has asked for the secret of how to improve his game. India is nurturing vague hopes of hosting the Olympic Games in 2016, but knows that it must first give a more convincing demonstration of its sporting prowess. Big money might help. Bob Houghton, a former Fulham player who guided China to the 2002 World Cup finals, was appointed head coach in May, and some Brazilians are trying to nurse the talent in the three parts of the country where the game has a following: Kerala, Bengal and Goa. But there is a way to go: the national team has only once qualified for the World Cup, in 1950, and even then they were forced to withdraw when Fifa ruled that they could not play barefoot.
India needs a Russian oligarch to take an interest, a premier league, a myth to link the game with some ancient indi- genous sport and a Manchester United to establish a supporters’ base. Above all, it needs to abolish that pernicious legacy of British colonialism: cricket. With that overwhelming distraction, football barely gets a foot in the door.