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SpeakOut: No More Fixture Congestion, Please!
The problem of fixture congestion continues to hamper Indian football...
29-Dec-2009 5:01:20 PM
The Federation Cup group stage is over as we now enter the
knockout matches of the competition with two cracking semi finals coming up on
Wednesday and Thursday, followed by the final on Sunday.
Each of the four semi finalists will have at least two days off before their semis and the two teams which make it to the final will also get a similar period of rest.
But if we look back at the group stage, teams have hardly had any rest. 24 matches were played in 6 days with each of the 16 clubs having to play three games in five days.
So once again the problem of fixture congestion has popped up in an important domestic competition. Remember the winner of this tournament goes on to play in the AFC Cup so a bit more care could have been taken in the scheduling of the games.
And this is not the first time we are seeing this in Indian football. In 2009 the second division and the Santosh Trophy was also scheduled in a way which left players no time to rest and recover from their knocks. It also eventually contributed in bringing down the quality of football in those competitions.
We must remember that it is more difficult for Indian players to play with the same level of intensity if they have to play every two days. The biggest problem of this scheduling is that it happens throughout the year. Even the I-League has had the same problem as the games have been coming thick and fast leaving very little time for clubs to prepare for their next match.
Some of the bigger clubs do have squads that can cope with this fixture congestion but then again clubs like Viva Kerala, Mohammedan Sporting and HAL, who do not have enough quality and depth in their squads, are not able to produce their best.
A team like HAL, who don’t even have a competitive regional league, do well to qualify but are not able get good results in the group stage as three matches in five days are too much for them. Thus some of the lesser teams are denied a level playing field to show what they have.
The fixture congestion also affects the performances of Indian clubs at the continental level. Like for example, last season Mohun Bagan won the Federation Cup, finished runner up in the I-League and also won the Kolkata League. All that was achieved by playing many matches in a short span of time thus coach Karim Bencherifa was forced to give less importance to the AFC Cup.
As a result Bagan suffered the humiliation of losing all six of their group matches. Dempo on the other hand, gave emphasis to the AFC Cup as they were not in a good position in the I-League. The Goan giants reached the round of 16 of the AFC Cup but finished a disappointing fourth in the league and fifteen points behind eventual champions Churchill.
It clearly shows that it is very difficult for Indian clubs to perform equally well at domestic and continental level if the fixtures are not arranged in a professional way.
The national team players also suffer because of the busy schedule thus there is also the risk of them getting burned out going into an international tournament. With the 2011 Asia Cup only 13 months away, there needs to be a quick solution to this problem. If this fixture congestion persists, the possibility of national team players playing only for the country will become a reality.
This problem of scheduling of matches has existed for a long time and is one of the reasons which are holding Indian football back. The AIFF want to take football in this country to the next level but it will never happen if issues like these are not given proper importance. These may only be nitty-gritty things but if it is not taken care of, the sport overall suffers.
The federation won’t be able to solve this problem alone because tournaments like Durand Cup, IFA Shield and the regional leagues are also scheduled unprofessionally. So the state associations need to cooperate and leave AIFF enough time to organize the national competitions.
Football in India has been suffering for a long time because of improper scheduling of matches in a tournament. It’s high time now that we learn from our mistakes and solve this as soon as possible.
Amoy Ghoshal
Each of the four semi finalists will have at least two days off before their semis and the two teams which make it to the final will also get a similar period of rest.
But if we look back at the group stage, teams have hardly had any rest. 24 matches were played in 6 days with each of the 16 clubs having to play three games in five days.
So once again the problem of fixture congestion has popped up in an important domestic competition. Remember the winner of this tournament goes on to play in the AFC Cup so a bit more care could have been taken in the scheduling of the games.
And this is not the first time we are seeing this in Indian football. In 2009 the second division and the Santosh Trophy was also scheduled in a way which left players no time to rest and recover from their knocks. It also eventually contributed in bringing down the quality of football in those competitions.
We must remember that it is more difficult for Indian players to play with the same level of intensity if they have to play every two days. The biggest problem of this scheduling is that it happens throughout the year. Even the I-League has had the same problem as the games have been coming thick and fast leaving very little time for clubs to prepare for their next match.
Some of the bigger clubs do have squads that can cope with this fixture congestion but then again clubs like Viva Kerala, Mohammedan Sporting and HAL, who do not have enough quality and depth in their squads, are not able to produce their best.
A team like HAL, who don’t even have a competitive regional league, do well to qualify but are not able get good results in the group stage as three matches in five days are too much for them. Thus some of the lesser teams are denied a level playing field to show what they have.
The fixture congestion also affects the performances of Indian clubs at the continental level. Like for example, last season Mohun Bagan won the Federation Cup, finished runner up in the I-League and also won the Kolkata League. All that was achieved by playing many matches in a short span of time thus coach Karim Bencherifa was forced to give less importance to the AFC Cup.
As a result Bagan suffered the humiliation of losing all six of their group matches. Dempo on the other hand, gave emphasis to the AFC Cup as they were not in a good position in the I-League. The Goan giants reached the round of 16 of the AFC Cup but finished a disappointing fourth in the league and fifteen points behind eventual champions Churchill.
It clearly shows that it is very difficult for Indian clubs to perform equally well at domestic and continental level if the fixtures are not arranged in a professional way.
The national team players also suffer because of the busy schedule thus there is also the risk of them getting burned out going into an international tournament. With the 2011 Asia Cup only 13 months away, there needs to be a quick solution to this problem. If this fixture congestion persists, the possibility of national team players playing only for the country will become a reality.
This problem of scheduling of matches has existed for a long time and is one of the reasons which are holding Indian football back. The AIFF want to take football in this country to the next level but it will never happen if issues like these are not given proper importance. These may only be nitty-gritty things but if it is not taken care of, the sport overall suffers.
The federation won’t be able to solve this problem alone because tournaments like Durand Cup, IFA Shield and the regional leagues are also scheduled unprofessionally. So the state associations need to cooperate and leave AIFF enough time to organize the national competitions.
Football in India has been suffering for a long time because of improper scheduling of matches in a tournament. It’s high time now that we learn from our mistakes and solve this as soon as possible.
Amoy Ghoshal
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