Your Ad Here

Women's football in India

Women's football has not had the relative head start over the rest of the world that the men's game has had, and also has not had the chance to spread through the country like its male counterpart. The game was administerd by the Women's Football Federation of India (WFFI) until the early 1990s when they were absorbed into the AIFF. However there are complaints that women's football is treated as a poor relation to the men's game leading to (unfulfilled) plans to de-merge the WFFI.

The women's game, like the men's game, also has its early pioneers in the state of West Bengal. The large Kolkata teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, started women's club sides in the 2000/01 season, and they participate with other teams in the Calcutta Women's Football League. However it has been seen recently that players from Manipur have made far advances in the game. Players from these two states make up a large part of the India women's national football team.

The main women's national competition is played on a state vs state basis in the Senior Women National Championship . There are also similar national championships for junior teams: Junior Girls National Championship (for under 19s) and the Under-17 Girls National Championship.

Some female players have become internationally recognised: in February 2000 Sujata Kar and Alpana Sil became the first Indian footballers to sign a contract outside India itself. They signed with the German team TSV Crailsheim but had to return after a month due to problems with the clearance of their international transfer.

The state of women's football in India, again like its male counterpart, is poor. In the 2003 AFC Women's Championship the Indian team was embarrassed by their results, especially after a 12-0 defeat to the Chinese women's team . This is especially in the light of the poor support by the AIFF, especially of the national team. The team's trip to Germany was only made possible by Non Resident Indians in the country, and by the support of the German Football Association. Furthermore championship are said to be held in remote locations, and national media coverage is said to be lacking with reporting mostly restricted to state and local newspapers. won the curry cup

1 comment:

Hope Floats said...

this situation is so unfortunate in a country like ours where money is certainly not a problem. But these stupid mid set of ppl who dont want women sport to take off. And football is a looser at the end of it....the AIFF is clearly to b blamed for the lack of basic needs for football in india. Somebody needs to sue the AIFF if possible.

Those sumb bags sitting there are just not helping the sport in any way. We are a cricket crazy nation but u cant jus keep blaming cricket to rob away the limelight.

The BCCI,makes effort to see the game gets marketed, popularised well. Why can other sport in india also get a brain of Modi or Pawar?

Or y cant we just hand over the AIFF to some pirvate sport company to handle the association.

At times like these i feel india shd have a dictator rule jus to get r act rite....am sure it wud help.

Cheers!!!