Football in my Third World Country

Vikrant Hatwalne

28th January 2017 | 5:08 PM

These are some of the ground realities facing the average football fan in India.

Traditionally, the term ‘Third World Country’ was used during the cold war to refer to the countries that were not aligned to either the First World (capitalist) Countries or the Second World (communist) Countries. However the term evolved over the times and took up various connotations but you can read more about that somewhere else. In footballing terms, I’d like to take the liberty to define a Third World Country as one in which neither International Football, nor Club Football gains growing prominence. India, in that sense, has been a Third World Country.

The next generation?
They have no place to play because the playground is full of people playing cricket

The life of a football fan in a Third World Country is not easy. Those of you who belong to the same category as I do will completely agree to the tortures we have to endure. I’ll go on enlisting issues and you will either smile sadly (because you know what I’m talking about) ,or you will be shocked at the blasphemy.

I grew up as a cricket lover. The school playground was only big enough to accommodate two practice nets and I had no option but to play cricket in my early formative years. Then in the year 1998 something happened and we were all playing football. In any cramped up space there were children, there were makeshift goals, and there was football. You may be tempted to ask the reason of such a late arrival of the sport. There are several.

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