'I can start showing Indian football again'

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">MUMBAI: Live quality TV coverage is a major driving force behind sport today. Apart from being a source of major revenue for the organisers, the quality telecast has played a significant part in the popularity of all sport.<br /><br />Hence, it defies logic to hear any sports body messing up a deal with a TV channel.Least of all if you happen to be the All India Football Federation or the Indian Hockey Federation for whom it could the only source of revenue.<br /><br />Both the federations are known to have breached their contracts with the sports channel StarSports (now merged with ESPN and known as ESPN StarSports) in the mid 90s and as it stands today, it has turned out to be a huge loss for everyone concerned with the game in the country. <br /><br />Needless to say, had our associations kept their word, the concerned sport would have been more popular, the players bigger, the infrastructure better and the associations richer.<br /><br />The topic came up for discussion during a chat with the ESPN StarSports chief Rik Doovey at the FA Premier League Asia Cup tournament at Kuala Lumpur last week.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Excerpts</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">You said you would like to bring top quality football like the FA Premier League Asia Cup tournament to India and make the game more popular here. So in hindsight is your decision to discontinue telecasting local football here a mistake?</span><br /><br />We had signed a five-year contract with AIFF in 1995-96 and with IHF a little later. We pulled out after both breached the contract. <br /><br />We did a full year of football - the KBL Cup, National Football League. We were paying to have it exclusively, we were investing a lot in the sport including marketing it, etc. and were paying all the bills. <br /><br />For political reasons they chose to give some matches to Doordarshan and breach the contract. It was silly, as it is not that they did it for money, we were paying them more. <br /><br />We were very unhappy about it, the response we were getting at the start of the second season we would have got sponsors, we would have got advertising money, so everything was going according to the plan. It was a big investment for a period of five years but we were happy. <br /><br />But If I am paying all this money to have it on our channel to develop and support the game, to have a politician in the AIFF to go and give it to his friend in Doordarshan to please or favour him I am sorry I am not paying. So we walked out. I see absolutely nothing has changed in the meanwhile to make us go back. If I cannot do a deal with the organisers of the sport then what''s the point. <br /><br />I don''t have this problem with the Champions League, English or Spanish League. When you sign a deal, you stick to it. These guys ripped it up after one year and they were the losers. Every year since, they have come back and asked us to take it back again. I say why I would do it. <br /><br />I think it is a real sad thing for Indian football. We had the same experience with hockey. We did not show the hockey matches because of breach of contract at the same time as football. Same time, same problem, same thing. We had an exclusive contract with the IHF — we produce the game, we show the game. Before we showed even one game they gave some of our matches to Doordarshan. This year they came back again. They said: "Sorry, you show us". They gave us two weeks. I said: "No, convince me we would not have the same problem. And I am not convinced".<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">About working again with AIFF? </span><br /><br />I don''t know. Perhaps I would, but I really need to see a different attitude from those guys and I would write the contract differently wherein, if they breach it, we could get damages. <br /><br />If you are into something and it is taken away from you before you start to get any gains from it then it is a waste of money and effort. As far as I am concerned, we threw away a lot of money and a lot of effort by our people. So, as I see it: I can start showing Indian football again. But someone in the football organisation needs to convince me it is for real and I haven''t seen it yet. <br /><br />Honestly, I would love to do it, we don''t want to survive by cricket alone. We want a complete offering. We know that, particularly in Bengal, Goa, Kerala and other parts, there is a real following for football. Having seen it grow into international football the way it is growing it is logical for us to get into local football. I would love to do it but the conditions should be there. <br /><br />I don''t want to get into a contract with these guys to turn around and see them, later on, tear it up in my face. Meanwhile, we are pumping in all efforts into the Champions League, Premier League, Spanish and AFC.<br /></div> </div>