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Vietnam or Laos; WC or Asian Cup: Howlers galore from Praful Patel & ISL in broadcast blackout

By TFG Team
June 02, 2016

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INDIA STARTED THEIR double-leg Asian Cup Qualifiers (3rd Round) playoff on a positive note by beating Laos 0-1 away from home.

Now, since this match was not shown live on television, fans had no option but to follow the match online. And those who could not find a stream had to depend on updates from prominent Twitter accounts related to Indian football to get an idea of how the match was progressing.

But unfortunately for them, some of these accounts, and people, appeared to be much less invested or interested in this extremely crucial national team game than most of the fans were. And the way they spoke about or covered this match was less than ideal.

First there was the official Twitter handle of Indian Super League, the private tournament that wants to be the be-all and end-all of Indian football. It is also set to be baptised as India's official top division league next season. They were live-tweeting the match, but seemed to have trouble figuring out where it was taking place.

To be fair: Laos and Vietnam are, like, neighbours.

Later, when Eugeneson Lyngdoh tried hard to drive a volley into the Laos net and missed, the ISL twitter handle thought it was Indian captain Sunil Chhetri who was going at it.

To be fair: Sunil and Eugeneson are, like, Bengaluru FC teammates.

But the gem of the day came from none other than the AIFF President Praful Patel himself. While wishing the national team best of luck, he inadvertently revealed that he did not know that the Blue Tigers were currently fighting for a place in the Asian Cup and not the World Cup.

To be fair: World Cup and Aisan Cup are, like... oh what the hell.

Later on, realising their mistake, both guilty parties deleted their tweets. But the fact that they paid so little attention to basic details about the national team raised concern about how serious their feelings are about the national team; especially because Patel and ISL are in a position to control the entirety of Indian football.

Among the football fans, there is a word for people whose attitude towards the sport is found to be dismissive, casual or lacking sincerity: plastic.