India has set a target to qualify for the 2010 soccer World Cup and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is working with the current under-16 & under-17 teams to turn this dream into reality. There is no doubt that India's performance at international level is constantly improving since the last year or so and the latest achievement for India was at the inaugural Afro-Asian Games, held at Hyderabad (India) 2003, where India finished second to Uzbekistan. India defeated higher ranked teams -based on FIFA's ranking- such as Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Malaysia before losing 1-0 to Uzbekistan in the final. There was a big question mark over the standard of the teams participating in the Afro-Asian games because most of the teams came with a under-20 or second string players. Still it was creditable performance by an Indian team because they were able to produce some happy moments for the home fans in terms of international success.

When one looks at the youth development structure of Indian football, it hardly looks impressive and productive. The question is that is there any concrete system or structure for youth development in India? The answer is a big no. First of all there is no existing coordination among different organizations which are working for the promotion of football in India including the AIFF and its affiliated units. The AIFF should take the major blame for its failure to have a concrete youth development policy. The AIFF has 30 plus affiliated units and these affiliated units in turn have plenty of units in the form of clubs and district bodies but apart from few notable ones not a single unit is running any purposeful youth development scheme.

The AIFF has a good policy for the clubs playing in the National Football League i.e. the clubs are required to have a under-19 team and the AIFF has also started an under-19 national league for that same purpose. But the big question mark remains where is the regular training and development for building good under-19 teams by the club sides? Most of the clubs collect players just before the start of the under-19 league and thus the whole venture remains more of a formality rather then a serious venture. It is due to the absence of sound monitoring system and lack of action on the part of AIFF. Sadly such deliberately negligent acts take place regularly in Indian football.

In India serious efforts are made regularly to develop football players for the future but most of the work is carried out by the organisations which are not linked with the AIFF or its affiliated units or clubs. These organisations are mostly private, funded by passionate football fans and one or two from corporate giants of India. The best in the business is the Tata Football Academy, which was established in 1987. This academy is at the forefront of the Indian youth development system and many players from this academy graduate to the national and top club teams of the country. But so far this academy has failed to produce a single quality player of international standard. A corporate giant TATA is fully financing this academy but in no way can it be compared to the Manchaster United or Real Madrid Academies. There are numerous other academies spread all over the country like Williamson & Magor Football Academy 1980 (Assam), SESA Football Academy 1999 (Goa), Mohun Bagan-SAIL Football Academy 2003 (Kolkata), Chandigarh Football Academy 2000 (Chandigarh), DDA Football Academy 2003 (Delhi), Roorka Kalam Football Academy 2001 (Panjab), SAIL Football Academy 1998 (Bokoro), etc.

Apart from academies there are numerous football training hostels run by the Sports Authority of India (sports promoting arm of the Govt. of India), which has more then 20 training centers all over the country in the age group of 12 to 20 years. The Sports Authority of India is running coaching programs since 1986 in many part of the country. Most of the state governments too have sports and football hostels located in different districts of the states, where training takes place for 12-18 year olds. The most youth teams are found in heart of Indian football ie Kolkata, there are around 50 under-14 & under-16 teams trained by different organisations related to football. But in last few years youth teams from North Eastern states of India are dominating the age group tournaments in India. There are seven states in the north eastern part of India and all the seven states are full of people passionate about football and recently educational institutions from these states, with active help from local state governments, are trying to build good youth teams. India's national under-16 and under-17 teams are dominated by players from these states. These seven states have fewer football infrastructures compared to other states of the country and hardly any football infrastructure; still they have progressed a long way to lead in terms of football talent.

Looking into the above facts indicates that there are numerous organisations working for the promotion of football at the grass roots level and there should be a good future of Indian football and quality players should be coming out of the youth development system. But the chances are very slim that these academies and training centers will be producing quality players of international standard in the near future because of reasons explained below.

First of all not a single one of these academies and coaching centers are linked to a common organisation. These centers and academies totally lack uniformity in coaching specific to an age group. In India there is an absolute lack of quality youth coaches and thus there is a problem in proper development of youth players. Coaches cannot be blamed for their lack of knowledge in youth development, it is due to non-existent coaching programs in the country. The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has started a coaching program in India and they provide C, B, A and pro-license to coaches from India but the AIFF must press AFC to start youth coaching in a big way, so that we have many trained youth coaches in the country to take care of the youth development program.

The other problem with youth football in India is the non-availability of proper nutrition at the right age with respect to training. As there are 50 teams in the under-14 & under-16 categories in the heart of Indian football i.e. Kolkata, the main problem with these kids is the non-availability of proper nutrition. Most of the kids are highly talented but due to a lack of proper nutrition they might not reach to the top of their football potential. Even coaches dealing with youth teams hardly stress this vital point. Thus many youth players remain very weak, fragile and fail to attain a proper growth as per their age.

Indian football still has not incorporated science into its various aspects of football development. It is the science that has taken football to a new height and everyday there are new research findings, which lead to advancement in various aspects of football training worldwide. Only team national team, very recently, under Englishman Stephen Constantine started using scientific inputs for training and development. This problem in Indian football is mostly due to a lack of quality sports institutes and sports researchers. In the best academies in India there are no support staff to take care of sports injuries, exercise physiology, sports biomechanics, sports psychology, sports nutrition, etc., to deal with proper development of trainees. Nowhere in the country a quality sports testing lab is available so that a player can test his/her fitness. Physiological, psychological, physical parameters are not measured scientifically.

Habits and personality grooming is another aspect which is totally missing from football academies in India. Academies in India hardly concentrate on developing personality of players. Most of the academies even don't stress on general education of its players and ultimately players that come out of these academies are low in aspiration, and self-esteem and lack professionalism. Problem with Indian football is that it lacks personalities, role models which can attract a young generation to its fold all due to the current system of youth development. Only one personality is ruling in Indian football i.e. Baichung Bhutia. He groomed himself well and above all he was very professional from the beginning. That is why he has been a success in Indian football and other footballers need to learn from him as he is truly a role model for Indian youths.
Most clubs in India hardly run any youth development programs and thus they don't send scouts around country to spot talent. The best grass roots tournament in India, where talents can be spotted in abundance is the Subroto Cup which was started in 1960. In this month long tournament schools from all over the country participate. In 2003 34 teams participated in the under-17 category and 21 teams in under-14 category and best talents around India were on display. But sadly, hardly any scouts from clubs were present to spot the best available talents. That is the attitude that exists in Indian football that is very sad, year after year talents are going to waste and nobody seems to be serious about it.

India is a vast country considering its length and breadth, what it requires is a good organisation to run its football development program around the year with proper planning and purpose. No doubt there are talents in plenty but they require timely direction and guidance from trained experts. At present youth development in India is scattered meaninglessly, working with different ideas and objectives. A Youth development program should be guided by set principles and philosophy and must come under a common umbrella so that the nation as a whole progresses in football, which has a huge potential to grow. If only this happens football will be popular in India and by that virtue India can qualify for the World Cup finals. Otherwise everything will remain on paper and dreams will remain dreams forever.