Live India, Love Football

The other day I reached my 4 year Anniversary of living in India.  Instead of writing out some sappy, inspirational post which I would normally do, I'll share what I wrote on a Facebook message since it sums up how I've gotten this far: 4 years ago I boarded a flight in New York City thinking I was going to transform the Indian football industry. 18 hours later I arrived in Delhi realizing that I first needed to transform myself to even survive in this country. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this 4 year journey. So many people to list, but you know who you are. Special thanks to  Sukhvinder Singh ,  Tulika Saxena Singh ,  Sweekar Kapoor , Randeep Baruah ,  Priyasmita B Baruah ,  Raunak Balasubramanian ,  Karan Jindal , Dhyan Saamya ,  Tarun Chaudhry ,  Vipin Suri . Looking forward to many more years in this special place... Transformation and surrender are critical for anyone looking to make a difference in India. I'm fortu...

The unpredictability of working within the Indian sports industry: some call it a curse, others call it a blessing, I just call it adventure.  I try not to compare my time working in the US with how things get done in India as those who do typically go insane. With that being said, after 7 years of being a professional at Major League Soccer I did develop some conditioning and comfort with processes, structure and practicality.  I’d go as far as saying that agendas, meeting follow ups, strategies, timelines, objectives, etc… became my so called “comfort zone” and by the time I left MLS in 2009 I couldn’t imagine being effective professionally within an environment that didn’t involve these basic business fundamentals. It was due to the above that I struggled during my first year working in India. At that time, I was with the advertising agency Dentsu serving as an Associate in their Sports Marketing group.  I was clear right away that none of the business acumen...

I’m proud to share that last week our Libero Sports team announced a major partnership between our client DSK Group and Liverpool Football Club.  Through this partnership, a residential Academy will be established at the DSK Supinfocomm campus in Pune where hundreds of the top Indian footballers will live and train under the guidance of coaches from Liverpool Football Club. This partnership announcement was a monumental moment for our organization and for football in India.  Libero Sports benefitted as the international and domestic media attention given to this announcement helped to establish our organization’s credibility and expertise in facilitating relationships between top global football entities and Indian businesses.  Indian football benefitted from this partnership as for the first time in history, an international club is partnering with an Indian outfit with the intention to set up a full time Academy vs. pay to play Soccer Schools  model which is ...

It may be an exaggeration to call Ashok my friend since we have only met twice but he feels like a friend already. I’m sure I’m not the only person to say this since Ashok has the presence of someone you want to be friends with. He is genuine, humble, sweet and full of love for humanity.  I first heard of Ashok through a friend of mine in Mumbai. He sent me an email about how while he was at a typical Mumbai house party he was drawn towards someone who seemed different about the rest. He wasn’t loud, gossipy or trying to be accepted by others, he was just silently enjoying the party.  My friend spoke with him and once he found out about his background, he immediately sent an email to me saying that I must meet Ashok. A few months later I was driving home from work when I get a call from another friend of mine Neil Patel. Neil was attending an NGO conference and told me that he met someone at the conference who I must meet.  He even went as far as handing Ashok the phone...

At the total risk of being made fun of about my ego and classlessness, I’m posting this picture because I like it.  This picture was taken by the freelance photographer Anastasia Taylor-Lind  who was handling the photography for a piece Mick Brown was writing  for the Telegraph UK about Indian’s returning to the country for professional opportunities:  http://s.telegraph.co.uk/graphics/india2.0/part-two/index.html#chapter2   This was taken during halftime of my weekly football match at my  friend AJ’s home in Gurgaon. 

The other day I attended the AFC-AFDP Dream Asia Seminar on CSR.  I didn’t know what to expect as my past experiences with conferences in India haven’t been overly positive. They typically start and end late and are mainly forums for people to promote themselves regardless of them being a keynote speaker, on a panel or asking a question thus making these events more entertaining than informative.  With the above experiences floating through my mind, I begrudgingly hopped in the taxi to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Dwarka to attend Day 1 of the two conference being hosted by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Asian Football Development Project (AFDP) and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) with of course a little help from my organization Libero Sports India.  This conference couldn’t have been more different than what I described above.  First of all, the room was full of people not just looking to collect business cards while munching on free food, ...

Within the Indian football fraternity, there is a strong belief that we need to rely on foreign coaches to improve the level of coaching within the country.  I tend to agree with this belief as over the past few years, I haven’t met enough Indian coaches who have the right mix of experience and technical expertise required to produce international level players.  It’s not that quality Indian coaches do not exist in India, as there are some, however it’s that there are just not enough to service the needs of a country with 1.2 billion people. What I’ve learned through experience though is that successfully bringing over a foreign coach to India and making it work is no easy task. I’ve watched our Player Representation department working around the clock facilitating these coach deals for I-League clubs and I’ve been personally involved in helping find foreign technical staff for a few of our Academies. In the beginning, I honestly thought that the hard part was just findi...

One of my least favorite times of the year is the first week back in India after returning from my annual trip to the US and UK. It’s not that I don’t want to be back, it’s just that those first few days are usually spent in a jet lagged, semi depressed stupor while trying to cope with the old, but new chaos of India and the always reliable August monsoons. During those days I remain open to signs from God; something that reminds me that my purpose at this stage in my life is to be in India working on developing football. It’s crazy that during those days I have to convince myself of this because my heart already knows this fact as it’s my heart which usually does most of the talking about why I’m still in India when I answer this question to the hordes of people who ask me this during my Western tour.  Although my heart is aware of my purpose, my head is usually so full of noise and confusion during these days that convincing the chattering voice seems necessary for any comfort ...

I just returned to India after being on the road for 33 days and am feeling incredibly proud of myself.  Now being on the road for 33 days is not that spectacular especially if you are in sports marketing, an actor or rockstar on tour. Now I’m definitely not an actor or rockstar but as a sports marketing person I should be used to being on the road for this long as so many of my industry peers leave their homes and come back many months later after putting together major events like the FIFA World Cup, Olympics or Asian Games.  I wasn’t part of any major global events team yet I’m still proud of myself.  The reason I’m proud of myself is that over the course of the past month and three days I was somehow able to balance my life in a way where I could spend quality time with high profile professional contacts, friends and family in 10 cities across the US and Europe.  Quality, quality time, not just fly by conversations or small talk at a hospitality event where...