It means a lot! It’s your gateway to the Golden Gate! But there is a caveat the certification must be from an Institute of repute.
Remember, football is one of the most popular games in the world. It fetches billions of dollars in revenue and is a popular sport in most countries worldwide. The game has the highest viewership. Combine it all, and you can guess how much money is at stake!
Evolution of the game
From Chinese Tsu’ Chu, around 200 BC to the modern version of football, the journey took two thousand years.
The game of football got its modern look around the year 1863. In the same year (1863), FA took its birth. The credit goes to the English football clubs for giving football its modern look.
The game left the English shore in 1889 when Denmark and Netherland formed their governing bodies, followed by Italy in 1898 and Germany in 1900. On the other side of the Atlantic, Argentina in 1893 and Uruguay in 1900 followed suit. In 1904, FIFA took its birth in Paris.
Since then, rules get changed/modified, laws/by-laws came and disappeared, but football maintained a safe distance from its angry brother rugby.
Indian perspective
The game of football came to India in the mid-Nineteenth century through British soldiers. Introduction of the Durand Cup in 1888 and the IFA Shield in 1893, India holds the record of arranging the third and the fourth oldest tournament in the world.
India once stood fourth in the Olympic football, the champion of the Asian football is no more in the reckoning in the world football (ranking 104), not even in Asia with 19th rank.
What went wrong
In short, everything. Policy, planning, funding, coaching, and passion. India didn’t have a proper policy guideline for promoting the game. The initiatives were on the individual clubs to promote the game.
In India, there was a lack of planning to nurture young talents. At the government/state-level allocation of funds to encourage young players to take up the game as a livelihood, on the one hand, and refusal to embrace professionalism. The sheer incongruity of the situation was, India expected to win trophies in sports bodies with amateur footballers. In a game where amateurs participate, it’s absurd to find a professional coach. After the demise of Sayed Abdul Rahim, the Indian football coach, the Indian national football team’s downturn started accelerating. Moreover, the disease of using state and apex sports-bodies by the politicians added fuel to the fire.
Scope of Indian football
There is tremendous scope for improvement in Indian football. The game of football is one of the most popular games in India. It needs little investment in gadgets, though it is not easy for rural poor to buy a branded football boot. But there is talent. It should be so with a population of 1.40 billion, the chance of not getting a hundred young, talented footballers is odd.
That makes the prospect of professional football executives’ future highly exciting.
Role of professional executives now and in coming days
India, at last, embraced and accepted professionalism in football. It is now official to hire footballer s against payment of fees. And it means a lot for the professionals.
It’s a fact, engaging the best coaches and professionals cannot create a talented footballer. You cannot create a Maradona, Ronaldo, Messi, or CR7 by deploying your best coaches and professionals. Legends are born, not made. Most of teethe Latin American football legends came from low-income families indicating affluence is not an essential condition to scale the summit. They were lucky to get spotted.
What India needs now is a wholehearted approach to raise the standard of football in India.
Approach to resolve the issue
The most unfortunate part of the Indian crisis is the involvement of political players and opportunists everywhere. To advance, India needs to weed out the opportunists and fair-weather politicians from this portfolio, at least for a few decades. In cricket, dedicated investment in pace-bowling foundations presented a new generation of first-rated fast bowlers unheard of in the eighties. Indeed, India has a football academy for quite some time but need more. The experience of the existing academy can be a starting point to provide invaluable data for the Sports Scientists.
India needs white papers and dissertations from researchers from the disciples of Sports Science to make a name in the football world. If you are looking for a MBA Sports Management, then it’s a greenfield for you to work. It gives you the option to focus your field-work, dissertation, and job prospects.
Football is a body-contact game. To survive the rough tackles, the player needs strength and stamina. Remember the solo runs of Maradona in the ’86 world cup. Indian footballers need to increase their stamina apart from the basic skills to excel. The players also need a proper science-based rehabilitation regime to get back to activities. Thus, the scope of a football executive expands; in India, the potential field of work is immense.
To conclude, the advice is if you get an opportunity to complete post graduation as a football executive, grab it. Be selective European curricula in football is the best. If your Institute has a tie-up with a European University, it is a winning combination. Relax, and take the plunge. Visit here to know more.