Delhi gears up for UEFA finals

Drinks with Chelsea coaches, training at FC Bayern Academy – big brands are going all out too woo Delhi’s football fans
The UEFA finals are tomorrow and this means beers and cheers for Delhi’s football fanatics. The question on everyone’s mind is – will the Blue Devils reign over Bayern Munich? Or will Chelsea get dazzled by the tactics of FC Hollywood?
The excitement’s brewing, along with frothy drinks of course, in the city’s sports bars and pubs, and Underdogg Sports Bar & Grill will be churning out a little extra for customers by playing the game live, along with Chelsea coaches and hosts of “C2K (Countdown 2 Kick-off)” – Joe Morrison, Carlton Palmer, John Burridge and Sunil Chhetri – as Ten Sports, in collaboration with Adidas, will shoot an exclusive episode of “C2K”, the official presentation program for the Champions League.Fans will also get to win official home jerseys of the two clubs.
Miss it? No way!
“One of my most eagerly awaited dates of the year is the Champions League final,” says Arun Yadav, 23, “I’m going in for Bayern Munich; they have an amazing crop of players and deserve to win for playing some scintillating football. I’ll head out to a house party where both sides’ fans are coming, or a pub where they’ll screen the finals.”
Ditto for Bayern supporter Ravi Srikant, 24, who says, “I will be in Hong Kong, and according to the time there, it’ll be at 2:45 am! But I'll still watch it.”
Football is a game of ‘passion’ for girls too. Says Mani Mukherjee, 26, who is supporting the Blue Devils, because she has a special place for ‘The Special One’, aka former Chelsea manager José Mourinho. “I’m a Man City fan, but I once had a crush on José Mourinho.
He’s not just good looking, but under him the team won quite a few cups. Also, the team is full of sinful good lookers. A few of the girls and I are going to have a girly night,” she says. Zuleikha Gupta, 27, who’s supporting Chelsea FC, says, “I’m a Real Madrid and ManU fan. As for the 19th, I’m going to catch the finals at a friend’s house with tons of beer and cheer for Chelsea.”
Big brands & high TRPs
In a run-up to the big night, Adidas is organizing an Adidas-Chelsea FC Foundation Clinic on Saturday – an under-16 football clinic – at the Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi. More than 150 Delhi kids will be trained by coaches from the Chelsea FC Foundation team. This isn’t the first time Adidas has invested in football. Last year, it teamed up with Audi to select 10 kids to represent India in the FC Bayern Youth Cup in Mumbai and Delhi. These ten kids will get a chance to train in the FC Bayern Youth Academy.
Initiatives like these by big brands are not a surprise, as according to a 2010 report by TAM Sports & Analytics, the football audience has grown by 60% over a span of five years (between 2005 and 2009). Soccer saw the largest increase in advertising, and ranked the highest in non-cricket advertising. By the 2011 FIFA, sports advertising during football matches had doubled since 2005. Besides, most Indian media outlets and sports pundits are predicting that the UEFA finals will give the IPL 5 tough competition. The 2010 football World Cup saw the highest TRPs of 3 (only certain major games in the IPL garnered top ratings of 4-5, that year). Almost 155 million people watched football in 2011, a figure surpassed only by cricket viewers (176 million). So, are you all in for the finals?
(With inputs from Kritika Kapoor)