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Asian Debate: Can Asia Learn From The USA When It Comes To Football?
It is not just Europe which can lead the way...
29-Mar-2010 10:01:00 AM
By John Duerden
Receiving press releases comes with the territory of writing about football. For the past year or two though, mails from Kansas City Wizards have dropped into my inbox on a regular basis. I was never quite sure how this came about but there was one piece of Kansas-related news that I already knew about before the latest mid-west missive and that was the signing of Sunil Chhetri.
He becomes only the third Indian player to go overseas. Baichung Bhatia played for English lower league team Bury in 1999 while way back in the 1930’s, Mohammed Salim played for Celtic (a fascinating story in its own right but one for another day).Sunil was desperate to move overseas and I talked to him about his ambitions at the end of 2008. "The problem in India is that when you reach a certain level at an Indian club then it is easy to become stagnated," he said. "It is difficult to progress, learn and achieve new things. That is why I want to go to Europe, I want to go to a club where I can learn a lot and achieve more.”
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The striker is right. Football in India is growing but there is still a long way to go and it has to be said that the burgeoning middle classes look towards the leagues of England, Spain and Italy rather than their own I-League at the moment. At Goal.com our Indian team has tried, and are still trying, to promote the local game but we are under no illusions that, at the moment, the majority of fans look west. Now though, they need to look to the mid-west.
Europe can wait. Sunil's trial at Coventry did not go well for various reasons but the likeable Delhi-born star is too much of a gentleman to talk of such things in public. QPR came and went as did unlikely links with Celtic. Kansas could be a better fit, at the moment at least, than the lower leagues in England.It is common in European football circles to make fun of American ‘soccerball’ but the more open-minded lovers of the beautiful game appreciate that stateside soccer lovers have built their own football culture in the middle of a hugely competitive sports market. The presence of baseball, American football and basketball has helped to fashion how football is run in the US but there is much that Asia, and Europe too for that matter, could learn from the states.
A prominent American football journalist told me once that the English are scared of the US becoming a powerful football nation. I am not sure that is true but there is no doubt that the old world enjoys feeling superior to the new when it comes to the global game - another good US performance in South Africa this summer, especially against the Three Lions at Rustenburg, would help.
Asia and the US can certainly help each other and there have been moves to that end. Japan and the United States have developed close links over the past years as Tom Byer, a former US player who featured in Japan’s pre-J-League days back in the eighties for Hitachi (now Kashiwa Reysol) and now a well-known figure in Japanese football circles, told Goal.com.
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"I am surprised that more American's don't play out here in Asia and vice versa. However, American Football tends to look to Mexico and Latin American for their Players who can draw from the big Hispanic Market in the U.S," said the man known as 'Tom-san'.
"It would be good to have a relationship with some of the other Asian countries, Korea and China in particular which especially makes sense because of the huge Korean and Chinese Communities in the U.S.
"We need more exchanges of both players and coaches from Asia to America. Especially since the economies are so closely linked. Football could be a great way to build deeper understanding of each other's culture."
The rest of Asia could do worse than to take such words to heart but just like in Europe, here too, the notion that Americans have little to teach when it comes to football is prevalent.
The fact that MLS has survived and is starting to prosper in a tough market is impressive and while aspects of the US-model of revenue sharing, the league possessing player contracts and a salary cap may not fit everywhere, administrators from nations such as Korea, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran could do worse than take a trip to MLS HQ.
US football has shown that you don’t need to be the biggest sport to do things professionally. Years of hard work have progressed steady growth and was doing just that even before David Beckham arrived in California. The standard of football and the number of people watching is increasing as is the number of football-specific stadiums.
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Back here in Asia, Short-termism is common in the way football is run which is why greater contact with the US is no bad thing. Swapping players is a good start. All of Asia will benefit in Sunil makes the grade in the US and if the MLS is as far as he goes, that will not necessarily be a bad thing.
John Duerden
Asia Editor
john.duerden@goal.com
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