The All India Football Federation (AIFF) announced that the Intercontinental Cup, featuring four teams including the hosts India, will be held in June this year. The idea behind the tournament being that it would help India gain valuable match practice ahead of their 2019 AFC Asian Cup campaign.
However, when AIFF further mentioned that the tournament would be a regular event in the Indian footballing calendar, many were reminded of similar announcements in the previous years.
In 2017, the Indian FA came up with the Champions Cup which would again feature Asian, African and a North American team apart from hosts (sounds eerily similar?). The Champions cup was set to be held in August 2017 and was supposed to be a yearly event.
However, Afghanistan pulled out of the Champions Cup and it was converted to the Tri-Nation tournament with Mauritius and St. Kitts & Nevis competing with hosts India. Come 2018, the Tri-Nation tournament (or the Champions Cup) has paved way for the Intercontinental Cup.
Interestingly, all this reminds one of the Nehru Cup which was a somewhat annual fixture in the Indian footballing calendar between 1982 and 1993, before turning into a biennial affair till 1997. It was not held until 2007 when it was re-instated.
However, even the new lease of life extended to the tournament lasted only till 2012 which was its final edition, where India defeated a second-string team from Cameroon. The Nehru Cup used to feature around five teams in an edition.
There were plans to organise another tournament in 2014 but those plans fell by the wayside and AIFF's answer was to market it as the Champions Cup from 2017. Basically, marketing old wine in a new bottle (or bottles).
The idea of a tournament with teams from different continents was to provide the national team some much-needed competition.
Forget the fact that the teams are not sending their best teams, with most of the star players being rested instead of competing for a 'friendly' trophy. The rebranding every year of the tournament is turning into a farce.
Nehru Cup was supposed to become the Champions Cup. However, it did not even come to fruition and made way for the Tri-Nation tournament. Now, it is the Intercontinental Cup. All fancy names but one is left wondering what the name of the competition would be in 2019?
Probably a contest should be run to come up with another creative name next year?
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