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SpeakOut: The Women's Team Deserve Better Treatment
In this week's edition of SpeakOut, Goal.com's Amoy Ghoshal talks about the sorry state of women's football in India.....
07-Jul-2009 5:34:17 PM
In modern times gender discrimination is hardly prevalent but
still sometimes women are not given the same level of treatment in a few male
dominated areas and that is exactly what’s happening with Indian football.
The men’s team is all set to go for an exposure trip to Barcelona after successfully completing a national camp in Dubai. This is to ensure that they get the best facilities to prepare for the 2009 Nehru Cup and in the long run for the 2011 Asia Cup.
On the other hand the women’s team has been scratched from the FIFA rankings after being inactive for more than 18 months, with their last international match being a 1-4 away defeat at the hands of Iran in October 2007.
Since then the women’s team haven’t even played a friendly and the AIFF don’t seem to be too keen to improve the state of the senior team as they feel that their performances are not up to the mark so they want to concentrate on the age group teams.
Speaking to Goal.com, the outgoing general secretary of the AIFF, Alberto Colaco said, “We failed to qualify for the Asian Cup after we lost to Iran. So there was no competition in which we could play in 2008.
“When our U-19 women's team performed very badly in the qualifiers for the AFC U-19 tournament, the (Executive) committee was very concerned about this.
“We have decided to concentrate on the youth level and start participating gradually for the senior level tournament.”
Now it’s good that AIFF are planning a bright future for the Indian women’s team but surely they can’t be ignoring the senior team completely.
It’s true that the women’s team has had disappointing results but surely it cannot be worse than the men’s team. In fact the women’s team was ranked as high as 50 in March 2009 and since the creation of the women’s FIFA rankings in 2003, they have never gone out of the top 60 until June 2009 when they dropped to 98 because of not playing a game for more than 18 months.
So that clearly shows that the rankings have dropped due to a lack of international matches and not because of poor results. Even though they failed to qualify for the Asia Cup, the federation should have organized an international tournament like they are doing for the men’s team in the form of the Nehru Cup or maybe they could have arranged some friendly matches instead of keeping the team inactive for such a long period.
The men’s team qualified for the Asia Cup after 27 years, while the women’s team has actually participated in 9 out of the last 14 editions, finishing runner up twice and coming fourth once.
The record clearly shows that the women’s team has done better than the men’s team at continental level and so failure to qualify for the 2008 Asia Cup should have been treated as a learning experience rather than a disaster.
Also the AIFF should take some responsibility for the poor results as they do not provide the women’s team proper facilities to prepare for an international tournament.
Former Indian player Shukla Dutta told Goal.com, “Foreign teams have better facilities and are given a lot of exposure. Before we are to play a game against any foreign team, we don’t have any exposure trips. There are no friendlies organised.
“How do they expect the team to win against the bigger teams then?”
“After the nationals, when we announce the squad, the camp is called after three months. There are many breaks and no continuity in the football calendar,” said Shukla.
At domestic level also the women’s team suffers. The men have a professional I-League other than the regional leagues with a host of tournaments being played all year.
While for the women there is only the month long national tournament other than that most players have to keep themselves fit by playing district level tournaments which doesn’t really give them the preparation they need for international matches.
Skipper Ronibala Chanu told Goal.com “We play a lot of district level tournaments here in Manipur. We practice every day and keep ourselves fit.
“We want to play and it’s bad that they aren’t interested in the senior team. They have to think about us as well. If there are no tournaments, how will we improve?” questioned a miffed Chanu.
And there is evidence that the AIFF are doing very little to improve the state of women’s football in India as the women’s committee, which is to solve the problems existing in women’s football, hasn’t met for more than a year.
When Goal.com asked Wali Mohammed, who is a member of the committee, as to what the women’s committee was up to all this while, Wali stated that Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was their working committee chairman and after his illness, the committee never met.
However he has assured that the committee will meet soon and fight for the women’s team cause.
“But, we shall very soon meet and discuss the future of women’s football. If we play some games in the next three months, I am sure we would be included in the next FIFA rankings,” he said.
Now it remains to be seen whether the committee does actually meet soon and do something for the women’s team. It will also be interesting to see how well the federation implements their plan of improving the standard of age group teams.
It’s pretty clear that the women’s team is in an embarrassing situation for which they are not really responsible if the federation do not take this matter seriously now then it might get worse. The success of the women’s team is equally important as the men’s and so the federation should do everything they can to ensure the same…
Amoy Ghoshal
The men’s team is all set to go for an exposure trip to Barcelona after successfully completing a national camp in Dubai. This is to ensure that they get the best facilities to prepare for the 2009 Nehru Cup and in the long run for the 2011 Asia Cup.
On the other hand the women’s team has been scratched from the FIFA rankings after being inactive for more than 18 months, with their last international match being a 1-4 away defeat at the hands of Iran in October 2007.
Since then the women’s team haven’t even played a friendly and the AIFF don’t seem to be too keen to improve the state of the senior team as they feel that their performances are not up to the mark so they want to concentrate on the age group teams.
Speaking to Goal.com, the outgoing general secretary of the AIFF, Alberto Colaco said, “We failed to qualify for the Asian Cup after we lost to Iran. So there was no competition in which we could play in 2008.
“When our U-19 women's team performed very badly in the qualifiers for the AFC U-19 tournament, the (Executive) committee was very concerned about this.
“We have decided to concentrate on the youth level and start participating gradually for the senior level tournament.”
Now it’s good that AIFF are planning a bright future for the Indian women’s team but surely they can’t be ignoring the senior team completely.
It’s true that the women’s team has had disappointing results but surely it cannot be worse than the men’s team. In fact the women’s team was ranked as high as 50 in March 2009 and since the creation of the women’s FIFA rankings in 2003, they have never gone out of the top 60 until June 2009 when they dropped to 98 because of not playing a game for more than 18 months.
So that clearly shows that the rankings have dropped due to a lack of international matches and not because of poor results. Even though they failed to qualify for the Asia Cup, the federation should have organized an international tournament like they are doing for the men’s team in the form of the Nehru Cup or maybe they could have arranged some friendly matches instead of keeping the team inactive for such a long period.
The men’s team qualified for the Asia Cup after 27 years, while the women’s team has actually participated in 9 out of the last 14 editions, finishing runner up twice and coming fourth once.
The record clearly shows that the women’s team has done better than the men’s team at continental level and so failure to qualify for the 2008 Asia Cup should have been treated as a learning experience rather than a disaster.
Also the AIFF should take some responsibility for the poor results as they do not provide the women’s team proper facilities to prepare for an international tournament.
Former Indian player Shukla Dutta told Goal.com, “Foreign teams have better facilities and are given a lot of exposure. Before we are to play a game against any foreign team, we don’t have any exposure trips. There are no friendlies organised.
“How do they expect the team to win against the bigger teams then?”
“After the nationals, when we announce the squad, the camp is called after three months. There are many breaks and no continuity in the football calendar,” said Shukla.
At domestic level also the women’s team suffers. The men have a professional I-League other than the regional leagues with a host of tournaments being played all year.
While for the women there is only the month long national tournament other than that most players have to keep themselves fit by playing district level tournaments which doesn’t really give them the preparation they need for international matches.
Skipper Ronibala Chanu told Goal.com “We play a lot of district level tournaments here in Manipur. We practice every day and keep ourselves fit.
“We want to play and it’s bad that they aren’t interested in the senior team. They have to think about us as well. If there are no tournaments, how will we improve?” questioned a miffed Chanu.
And there is evidence that the AIFF are doing very little to improve the state of women’s football in India as the women’s committee, which is to solve the problems existing in women’s football, hasn’t met for more than a year.
When Goal.com asked Wali Mohammed, who is a member of the committee, as to what the women’s committee was up to all this while, Wali stated that Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi was their working committee chairman and after his illness, the committee never met.
However he has assured that the committee will meet soon and fight for the women’s team cause.
“But, we shall very soon meet and discuss the future of women’s football. If we play some games in the next three months, I am sure we would be included in the next FIFA rankings,” he said.
Now it remains to be seen whether the committee does actually meet soon and do something for the women’s team. It will also be interesting to see how well the federation implements their plan of improving the standard of age group teams.
It’s pretty clear that the women’s team is in an embarrassing situation for which they are not really responsible if the federation do not take this matter seriously now then it might get worse. The success of the women’s team is equally important as the men’s and so the federation should do everything they can to ensure the same…
Amoy Ghoshal
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