{"id":10697,"date":"2015-01-12T13:44:31","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T13:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/?p=10697"},"modified":"2015-01-16T10:02:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-16T10:02:18","slug":"indian-football-league-kicks-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/2015\/01\/indian-football-league-kicks-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian football league kicks off"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Indian

\u00a9 Aneek Biswas CC SA 3.0<\/p><\/div>\n

India, famous for its love of cricket, has finally embraced the \u2018beautiful game\u2019 with the launch of the Indian Super League (ISL) to replace a network of mini-leagues that previously served its largest men\u2019s football clubs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sepp Blatter, president of the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), once described India as \u201cthe sleeping giant of football\u201d \u2013 the game has a lot of grassroots support, but a low profile, compared to cricket. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of 2014, the new league kicked off with Atl\u00e9tico de Kolkata vs Mumbai City FC at the Salt Lake Stadium, which saw Atl\u00e9tico de Kolkata win 2-0.<\/span><\/p>\n

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee was quoted at the event as saying: \u201cFootball can conquer the world!\u201d He watched the game alongside national celebrities, international footballers and plenty of locals, who had raced to support the opening of the games.<\/span><\/p>\n

The introduction of India\u2019s first national football league in October 2014 has created much enthusiasm from investors and international footballers. Supporters include former footballers Luis Garcia, from Spain, and Freddie Ljungberg, from Sweden, who both came out of retirement to play for ISL teams. Peter Reid, former manager of top English teams Manchester City and Sunderland, is now managing Mumbai City FC. <\/span><\/p>\n

Many hope the upsurge in the sport\u2019s popularity will see India\u2019s fortunes improve on the international stage, too. The men\u2019s national team are 158th in FIFA\u2019s rankings, between Thailand and Puerto Rico, while the women\u2019s team ranks 53rd \u2013 just above Paraguay. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India, famous for its love of cricket, has finally embraced the \u2018beautiful game\u2019 with the launch of the Indian Super League (ISL) to replace a network of mini-leagues that previously served its largest men\u2019s football clubs. Sepp Blatter, president of the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), once described India as \u201cthe sleeping giant of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10673,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,42,150,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10697"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10701,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10697\/revisions\/10701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}