The effect of rising sports tourism market in India

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

All across the first two phases of ticketing, out of the 1.8 million Qatar World Cup 2022 tickets sold, over 23,500 tickets have been bought by Indian fans and thus India was ranked seventh in ticket sales. In 2018, Russia World Cup, almost 18,000 fans from India was present. India had the third highest number of fans in Russia across all non-competing countries, just behind the China and US.

So what actually motivates the sports enthusiasts of a country, whose women’s side ranks 58th and the men’s 104th and has never played in a World Cup so far, to the biggest sporting event of the world in such huge numbers?

It’s a bizarre dichotomy best explained by the fact that the captain of the men’s team, Sunil Chhetri, had to post a video through the Indian Football Team Twitter handle, requesting the supporters to take part in the Asian Cup qualifiers in Kolkata in June 2022.

About the video, there’s something disgraceful, that one of the greatest sportspersons of the country, a man who occupies a third spot on the list of active international goal scorers, has to beg to his fans to come and watch his team playing on field. As the video had the expected result and led to sellout crowds, it’s reflects on the state of Indian football.

On May 2022, the funding of the All India Football Federation had been slashed by 85 percent, as per the reports.

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