Guwahati: Amid the social media hype around the Indian Women’s League (IWL), more so after the addition of an Indian Super League (ISL) side this season, the inside story is more of trouble and agony for the participants of the 16-team tournament, currently underway in Ahmedabad.
Touted as a flagship tournament of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), the IWL is regarded as the most important domestic competition for women’s football in the country. And despite an unforgiving heat wave across most parts of the country, including the host city, the teams are made to play under the scorching sun.
In sharp contrast, the men’s competition, i.e. the Indian Super League was conducted between October and March, and most matches had a kick-off time of 7:30 pm, indicating the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) indifferent attitude towards women’s football.
“You can spot the difference in playing conditions. We may argue that as professionals we are expected to play in all conditions, but then why are the men’s matches held under the night skies? Also, there’s hardly any time to recover due to the tight scheduling, and then people start comparing the performances of women with our male counterparts. It’s harsh,” said an IWL player on the condition of anonymity.
As far as the scheduling is concerned, it was for the first time in five editions that the tournament was stretched for over a month in 2022, but this time however, despite an increase in participants, the competition will last less than 30 days. This means that the players will have very little recovery time.
This year 16 teams are participating in the IWL 2023 and are divided into two groups of eight teams each. The top four teams from each group will go to the knockout stage of quarterfinals, semi-finals and the final. The tournament kicked off on April 26, and the league stage will end on May 13. The dates for the knock-out games are yet to be announced. The top eight teams that reach the knockout stages will get direct slots for next year’s IWL.
Explaining the scenario, another player commented, “The tighter schedule means we will have very little breathing space and once your team reaches the knock-out stages, there will be many players down with freak injuries or niggles. And on top of that, there will probably be a one-day gap between the semi-finals and the final.”
Again, if one compares it with the 2022-23 ISL season that concluded recently, most of the games were held from Thursday to Sunday, giving enough time for the teams to recuperate, and more importantly revisit their strategies.
The IWL is currently played across two venues — the Shahibaug Police Stadium and the TransStadia in Ahmedabad, with matches scheduled for 8 am and 4:30 pm starts, each day. The players have no complaints about the venues, but what bothers them is the time consumed for travel and the thoughts of playing in excessive heat in the second half of the morning games.
According to the schedule, eight teams are in action each day, with four teams playing the morning matches, while the other four battle it in the afternoon (4:30 pm start).
“The morning games are very difficult as we need to reach the stadium two hours prior to the start, besides the extra 30 minutes consumed for travel. This means we have to be at the ground by 6 am and for that, we have to be up by around 5 am. And once the match starts, the going gets tougher as the mercury level keeps increasing,” the player said.
Another worrying factor for the teams is playing in anonymity, in comparison to their male counterparts enjoying the limelight, thanks to the million-dollar deals with private broadcasters. Also with the tournament confined to a single city, there’s hardly any scope for the teams to earn gate revenue or for the players to enjoy the fan/home support.
To put things in perspective, on the opening day, the matches at 8 am weren’t broadcasted, and only the evening games, less than half in the tournament, were streamed on the federation’s Youtube channel. Well, such an attitude is enough to sap the morale of the participants.
The AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey had acknowledged the unforgivable match timings in an interview and cited time constraints on the scheduling. On the broadcasting part, Chaubey said in an interview with a leading national daily, that the organisers preferred quality over quantity, and hence decided to broadcast 34 games in high quality. He, however, promised to promote the IWL in a much bigger way in the coming seasons.
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Well at least for the ongoing season, the attitude towards the top-flight women’s domestic competition in the country, has left many participants searching for some respite!
The AIFF’s ‘Vision 2047’ programme to mark 100 years of Indian Independence, hopes to have the men’s and women’s national teams qualify for the FIFA World Cup on merit, but given the preferential treatment, it appears that women’s football only finds importance on paper!
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