Virat Kohli believes India's sporting culture needs to change

03/02/2018

While admitting that currently, India doesn’t have a sports culture in the country, Virat Kohli voiced his excitement about the fact that India is moving in the right direction. The Indian cricket skipper also revealed that the improved awareness and coverage will help other sports in India grow.

While the Indian cricket team and, to a certain extent, the badminton team have been able to lay their stamp on the world stage, other sports have not really had too much success when it comes to success on a global stage. However, there are signs of improvement from every direction. From Rohan Bopanna winning the French Open last year to the Indian football team making it into the top-100 of the FIFA rankings, it has been all positive news recently.

Virat Kohli, who in the past had questioned the lack of a sporting culture of the country, explained why he wanted to make the leap into football – he owns a 12% stake in FC Goa – and the changing dynamic of sports in India.

“My ultimate aim in life, in general, is to have a sporting culture in India where people know each and every sport inside out; to be able to follow all sports equally. I am certainly excited about the fact that we are at a juncture where we have a chance to create that in the next 10-15 years and we foresee Goa as the hub where footballers feel, ‘if I want to become a high-class footballer in India, I need to go there and train’,” Kohli told TOI.

When asked why he took a stake in FC Goa, he quickly replied, “It’s passion. Unless I connect to a certain thing, I can never be a part. Even when signing brands, I have started following this (principle) very closely. I need to be there from inside whatever I am doing. I have always followed football.”

“Even now we (cricketers) get so excited playing football because the sport is so easy to get a hang of. You can understand the rules. Obviously, at the elite level, it’s different but it’s something that excites children very quickly. It’s about having a ball in front of you, trying to do something with it.

“There is motivation attached with the sport. Then there was this vision of growing together with the league. I see football developing in India in a massive way. The kind of awareness that ISL has created, everyone around the world talks about it. It’s been a wonderful change to Indian sport and I totally want to endorse that. One thing that I have missed growing up with is sporting culture. When you come to football games, you can see the sporting culture. Because people who follow football understand the sport. This is not about hitting the ball anywhere and running behind it. There is certain intelligence attached to football and those who understand football know exactly what’s going on.”

Even though India has a huge fan base for cricket, the football fanbase isn’t too shabby. However, the question that always comes up in a discussion regarding the two sports is why the most popular sport in the world hasn’t been able to catch up with the success that cricket enjoys in India. An optimistic Kohli explained that now with the kind of coverage Indian football was getting, it is bound to take off.

“It’s the lack of leagues like this at a major level. There is nothing like globalising the sport. With the kind of visibility on television and the kind of access that people have, it’s creating awareness. People know Indian players. People even watched all those who played at the Under-17 World Cup. It’s all about visibility,” Kohli added.

“Unless you get to show your talent, on television screens, it’s very difficult for people to start liking something. It happened with me as well. If our Under-19 World Cup wasn’t televised, maybe I wouldn’t have been sitting here. Our matches were televised and we got our chance to portray our talent. Then people started talking about us. The kind of visibility that the league has will play a major role.”

When asked why the Indian cricket team warms up by playing football, he explained, “We love it. There is a motivation attached to football. If you ask me to run 20 laps around the field, I would get bored after a while. But if you ask me to play a football match after a training session, I would keep running after that ball because I have a chance to do something with it. It’s a beautiful sport; everyone in the team likes it, and we love to show off as well.”

Virat Kohli believes India's sporting culture needs to change

Comments

0 Comments