Indian Football: Interview with Rob Baan

Interview conducted by Total Football:

Part 1-

Talking Points:

•  Rob says the first step is to improve football at the grassroots level. They are focusing on training coaches, training referees, raise the level of the I-league to give birth to more Indian football icons. 
• They are looking for a style of play which suits the Indian footballing culture. They want to focus on more skills and a passing game instead of the long ball style which usually suits large players. 
• The club culture is missing in India and he thinks it needs to be developed. 
• I-League players make good income so Indian parents should encourage kids who want to take up football as a career. 

Part 2-

Talking Points:

• We are not on track in achieving the goal of making it to the 2022 World Cup mainly because the organization is financially strapped, the government needs to encourage a sporting culture in the country and more money needs to be assigned for sports development.
• Due to the social media, kids now a days are paying attention to all that happens in world football. They pay attention to the European clubs, the South American clubs, the Asian clubs and are big football fans in general. They are fans off the field but he urges the kids to become fans on the field.
• The governments in Japan and Korea built a lot of infrastructure and developed the game at the grassroots level by introducing very good coaching, referee education and etc. 
• For example, Japan has 3000 UEFA A license coaches while India has 50 of them. It is all a numbers game, Japan is a much smaller country than India but they have 60 times as many A licensed coaches compared to India. 
• If India gets to host the U-17 World Cup in 2017 it will be a huge boost for the game in the country. 
• We have 3 AIFF academies and our goal should be to have at least 8 total in different regions. If the government provides more money they could reach their goal of having 8 academies.  

Part 3:

Talking Points:

• Our players lack technique. The physicality of the kids can be changed quickly but the technique takes time. 
• The best characteristic of the Indian players is that they have a great ability to concentrate and they have a focused attitude. They listen to the coaches and they want to win. 
• The clubs from abroad are setting up academies in India but they are only doing it to make money. They aren't bringing money into the country to develop kids. The foreign clubs are renting up the artificial turfs in the country and the AIFF doesn't have the facilities needed to train their own academy kids. The foreign clubs have enormous know how and they could help India very much, but their operations are not helping at the moment. 
• With the little money the AIFF has they are using it appropriately to invest in technology for training purposes. 
• Age cheating is a big issue in India. They are doing their best to get rid of that practice because it works against the development of the game. 
• India is behind in regards to football, we can't even compete in Asia. We need to invest more to progress. 
• The good thing is that there are more parents who are encouraging kids to play football.