Cannavaro and Pires to feature in India league
Reuters - Monday 16 January 2012, 11:23
Italy's World
Cup-winning captain Fabio Cannavaro, former Argentina skipper
Juan Pablo Sorin and Frenchman Robert Pires are set to feature
in an Indian football competition that hopes to replicate the
success of cricket's Indian Premier League (IPL).
Some 30 players and six coaches from abroad will be
auctioned off in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata for the February
25-April 8 league, one of the organisers told Reuters.
"We have signed seven 'icon' players for the auction and
each of the six teams will have one such player with a $600,000
salary cap," Bhaswar Goswami, executive director of Celebrity
Management Group (CMG), said by telephone.
Other signed-up players - all at the end of their careers -
include Portuguese midfielder Maniche, former Nigeria
international Jay-Jay Okocha, ex-Liverpool striker Robbie
Fowler, former Spain striker Fernando Morientes and Argentine
Hernan Crespo.
CMG has signed a 30-year deal with the Indian Football
Association for the league and has floated tenders for
franchises, Goswami said.
"We have started with six teams this year, all in the state
of West Bengal but have already been approached to expand the
league to other parts of the country.
"Every team will have $2.5 million to spend in the first
year. They will have a maximum of four foreigners and a
compulsory six under-21 Indian players in their squad."
Cricket's IPL dazzled fans with its exciting Twenty20
format, player auctions, post-game parties and heavy advertising
and now football - which has failed to produce top-class Indian
players - is poised for a similar makeover.
"The league is modelled on Major League Soccer and of course
IPL," Goswami added.
"We saw the hype and buzz around players' auction in IPL and
feel it can be an equal success. It's a brilliant concept. We
expect owners to make profit much earlier than the IPL
franchises.
"We are also in the process of finalising television rights
for live broadcast across south-east Asia."
PIRES PROUD
Goswami was bullish about the league's future and said it
would change the face of Indian football.
"I think we made the right start by launching it in West
Bengal. It's a football-crazy state where 100,000 people throng to
watch the local derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan.
"It will be a massive boost for local players to share the
dressing room and field with some of the players they grew up
idolising."
A cricket-dominated India ranks a dismal 162 in FIFA's
football rankings despite its huge population but some 60 million
Indians tuned in to the English Premier League's 2009/10 season,
roughly the same as Britain's entire population.
Nearly 120,000 fans gave a rousing farewell to Oliver Kahn
in the German goalkeeper's 2008 Bayern Munich swansong in
Kolkata and Argentina great Diego Maradona virtually brought the
city to a standstill during his visit the same year.
No wonder World Cup-winner Pires is keen to give the new
league a shot.
"Since I had nothing in Europe, why not try something
completely unknown? I've never been over there," Pires told
L'Equipe's website.
"I am proud to be the first Frenchman to go and play there.
And eight weeks is nothing."
Pires said he would at least be paid 395,000 euros for seven
weeks.
"If my [club] president likes me, it could be 790,000 euros. It is a lot of money. I'm not going to complain
about that am I? But I'm not going there as a tourist. It's a
new adventure."