Live India, Love Football

Our now nearly nine-month-old daughter, Leela, is well into her solid-food journey. She is discovering all sorts of tastes, textures, smells and colours, and watching her experience all of this has been one of the great joys of becoming a father. But there is something else I have been watching. My wife, Avantika. She has taken on the lion's share of the responsibility for feeding Leela, or at least attempting to feed her, three times a day. And honestly, it is quite a sight. Picture the scene. Leela is sitting in her ridiculously expensive high chair, wearing her standard feeding uniform: no shirt, no shorts, just a diaper and a pink bib. She has a huge smile on her face because she knows that a game—or battle, depending on your perspective—is about to begin. Avantika puts some food on the tray and, with the enthusiasm of someone presenting the winning dish on MasterChef, clearly announces what it is. "Sweet potato!" She then waits. The idea, as recommended by several pr...

During my first few years working in football in India, there was a widely held belief in the industry that made a lot of sense on paper: If we send talented Indian footballers to better football countries, they will become better footballers. Simple, right? Take a talented teenage player, put them in Western Europe or North America, surround them with better facilities, stronger competition, better coaching and a more developed football culture, and—poof!—watch them become the next big thing. I believed it too. And a few years into my career, I had the opportunity to test that theory. There was a young player represented by my company, Libero Sports, who was considered one of the brightest prospects in Indian football. He was still a teenager, but he had already performed well for the youth national team and had impressed at several international tournaments. We thought he had something special. And, like many others in the industry, we believed that if we could move him to an environ...