FIFA 2014 fever grips hills and plains of North East India
It is most arguably the only region in India where cricket takes a back seat to Foot Ball. Come North East India this summer and you will find people talking and living the World Cup football 2014.
Across the seven states, hills or plans people are getting ready to live this period with excitement and joy. With summers and power cuts, people in the most remote areas are also known to have arranged generators and cable connections to watch the matches live in televisions. Key players of different teams like Brazil, Argentina, Italy etc are discussed widely in local Addas and households both amongst the young and the elderly men.
The cable operators and the DTH operators on the other hand have been making preparations so that there is no technical constraint or disturbance to the viewers. A Sales Manager of Tata Sky confirmed that North East India is expected to provide a very high viewership for Football World Cup, which would be even bigger than the viewership of Cricket World Cup.
There are even jokes around that during this period, militants might be silent too! It is to be mentioned that the Commander-in-Chief of ULFA[I] Paresh Baruah was an ace footballer of Assam during his days and even nowadays he is reported to be playing the sport with his cadres in the camps.
After football world cup, all eyes of the region would be in the newly launched Indian Super League Football. And then of course the big one – FIFA under 17 world cup in 2017 of which some matches are expected to be held in Guwahati, Assam.
We are only a few days away from the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Five-time world champions Brazil is preparing to host the event for the second time in their glorious history. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be the 20th FIFA World Cup an international men’s football tournament that is scheduled to take place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014.The national teams of 31 countries advanced through qualification competition that began in June 2011 to participate with the host nation Brazil in the final tournament. World cup football has the participation of about 210 countries. A total of 64 matches are to be played in twelve cities across Brazil. With the host country, all world champion teams since the first world cup in 1930 (Argentina, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Uruguay) have qualified for this competition. Spain is the defending champion, having defeated the Netherlands 1–0 in the 2010 world cup to win its first World title.
The world cup started in 1930 and ever since India has not qualified to participate in it. Our central government and the political leaders have paid no attention to improve football in India. As such, India is still the underdog in football.