When Indian Footballers Beg, Fans Should Look in the Mirror
Watching Indian footballers publicly appeal to FIFA to save football in their own country is not just embarrassing. It is painful. These are professional athletes, national representatives, men who have spent years training, travelling, and sacrificing for the sport. Seeing them plead for the basic right to play football should force a moment of collective shame. But before directing all anger at administrators or federations, Indian football fans need to pause and ask an uncomfortable question. Where were we?
Blaming the All India Football Federation is easy. It is also incomplete. Institutions respond to pressure. They move fast when there is money, noise, outrage, and public scrutiny. They stagnate when there is silence. Indian football did not collapse overnight. It withered slowly, season after season, as empty stands, half-hearted viewership, and selective enthusiasm told those in power that failure would carry no real cost.
For years, fans insisted that Indian football deserved better governance. That is true. But governance improves only when there is something valuable to protect. Cricket administrators in this country do not dare experiment recklessly or allow uncertainty around the IPL because millions of fans make it impossible. The stadiums are full, broadcasters are locked in, sponsors line up, and outrage is instant when standards slip. That pressure is relentless. Football never generated that level of fear or urgency among its administrators.
Indian fans proved, repeatedly, that they will spend heavily on football when it suits them. They pay thousands to watch foreign stars. They stay up all night for European leagues. They flood social media with opinions about clubs they will never visit. Yet when it came to domestic football, commitment was conditional. Interest spiked when the product looked glamorous and vanished when it demanded patience. That inconsistency hollowed out the league’s leverage.
When fans do not show up, administrators cut corners. When fans do not sustain demand, broadcasters hesitate. When fans do not create outrage, delays become acceptable. This is not an excuse for incompetence. It is an explanation for why incompetence survives. A weak ecosystem invites neglect.
The most disturbing part of the current crisis is not the administrative chaos. It is the sight of players carrying the burden alone. Footballers are the last link in the chain, yet they are the ones paying the price. Careers are short. Contracts are fragile. A lost season is not an inconvenience; it is irrecoverable time. Fans who claim to love the sport must acknowledge that indifference has consequences measured in human livelihoods.
If Indian football fans truly want accountability, they must first accept responsibility. A league protected by its supporters cannot be quietly dismantled. A sport backed consistently by its audience cannot be left to drift. Administrators may light the fire, but apathy supplies the oxygen.
Watching Indian footballers beg should not just anger us. It should shame us into introspection. Because if fans had stood by the league with even a fraction of the loyalty shown to cricket, no federation would have dared let Indian football reach this point.
