Football is not known for it's popularity in India, with most people associating the country with the game of cricket. However, a collaboration between the Indian Football Association (IFA) and the Celebrity Management Group (CMG) plans to change this.
CMG director Bhaswar Goswami recently announced the Premier League Soccer, which is a tournament due to begin in March. The tournament is inspired by the hugely popular Indian Premier League of cricket. It will be a seven week tournament played between six teams.
Global soccer forums are buzzing with comment on what might come of this new tournament, largely because of the signing of a number of high profile and established European footballers. Hernan Crespo, Robert Pires and Fabio Cannavaro have all been signed to play for different teams.
Goswami believes that by bringing high profile footballers to India it will help increase the popularity of the sport. His aim is to have India qualify for the world cup in the next ten years. Critics, however, have argued that by spending money on expensive European footballers, India's national game will not improve.
However, each team can have a maximum of just three non Indian players on their side and at least one of these must also be Asian. There is therefore a large emphasis put on local footballing talent.
Many Indian football fans will be surprised to find that a lot of the most famous Indian footballers will not be taking part. This is because players from India's main football league, the I-League, have not been granted permission to play.
A disagreement between the IFA and the All Indian Football Federation (AIFF) has threatened the future of the PLS. The publicity brought to the PLS has angered the AIFF, who have run the country's I-League since it's inception in 2007.
This split is a great shame as it would be great to see India's greatest footballing talents lined up alongside European greats such as Crespo and Cannavro. If Indian football is to really flourish, then it will need to see these two federations agree and it may require both parties to make concessions.
Despite these hiccups the PLS can be seen as positive thing for Indian football, which is becoming ever more popular, especially in the state of West Bengal, where the tournament is being held. Indeed the Calcutta Derby between East Bengal and Mohun Baga saw a crowd of 90,000 people come to watch the game last season and the PLS will only work to further that trend.
The PLS certainly hasn't held back when spending money and over $7 million (about 35 crore rupees) has been spent on players, with team Barasat spending a whopping $840,000 on Hernan Crespo, who will be the highest paid footballer in the tournament.
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