Bend It Like Bala Devi

There is currently one Indian woman playing professional football in the UK. Ngangom Bala Devi, born and raised in Manipur, currently plays for the Scottish powerhouses Rangers in the Scottish Women’s Premier League. Taking the number 10 at Rangers, she is currently one of only two members of the Indian women’s national football team to be playing outside the Indian league system. As the sole representative of the team abroad, she currently represents a big step forward for the women’s game in India, and for the profile of Indian players on the international stage.

While there have been many Indian and Indian-origin players who have had some success abroad, it tends to be in the lower leagues. We also see the disappointing effect of the AIFF’s (All India Football Federation) lack of funding, as players eligible to represent India consistently choose to represent other nations. The most recent high profile example of this is Bayern Munich’s Sarpreet Singh who accepted his first team call-up to the All Whites (a nickname for the New Zealand OFC champion) in 2018. Born to Indian parents, the attention paid to him, the training facilities, and the standard of coaching provided by the New Zealand federation played a large part in convincing him to represent the country of his birth.

Even Indian men’s team legend Sunil Chhetri struggled abroad, showing the stark difference in quality between the Indian top flight and European football. He spent just 6 months contracted to Sporting Lisbon’s B-Team before being loaned back to Churchill Brothers in Goa and eventually was released from his contract.

When the national team’s all-time most-capped player and top goalscorer finds it difficult to get into the B-team of a club outside the top 5 leagues, you know you’re in trouble.

All this makes Bala Devi’s achievement all the more impressive. She is already a very-well established India international, having scored 65 goals from her 85 caps. She was also the AIFF Women’s Player of the Year for two consecutive years, 2014 and 2015. This was during a very successful period for Manipur, who won the 2014 India Women’s Football Championship and the football tournament at the 2015 National Games of India.

But that begs the question, why has her move to Europe only materialised now?

The answer lies in the lack of exposure that Indian footballers receive.

If a team wishes to benefit from the mountains of talent to be found in India, they have to work hard for it. Indian clubs and the Indian football federation struggle to find solid partnerships with foreign teams, and both Indian national teams’ struggles to qualify for major tournaments mean that Indian stars do not get opportunities to shine on the biggest stages. Neither Indian national football team has ever qualified for the World Cup since the infamous 1950 withdrawal of the qualified men’s team, and the two teams have only one appearance in the knockout stages of the AFC Asian Cup, and even that was in 1964.

There is a level of apathy towards these major tournaments where India underperform, with many fans preferring to focus on the minor tournaments where India succeed. Take the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Women’s Championship, where India have won every title since its conception, or the SAFF Men’s Championship, where India hold 7 titles. However, at some point beating Nepal, Bhutan, and occasionally Sri Lanka gets old.

The 2019 Women’s World Cup in France was a watershed moment for women’s football. Over a billion people watched USA beat the Netherlands in the final, clinching yet another title for their slowly ageing golden generation of players including Tottenham’s Alex Morgan, Manchester United’s Tobin Heath, and 2019 Ballon d’Or Féminin winner Megan Rapinoe. The timing could not have been better, Bala Devi’s move to Scotland and the world’s new interest in the women’s game might just have perfectly coincided with a renewed movement for rejuvenation and professionalisation in the women’s game.

On the 17th of December, all the way back in 2014, AIFF General Secretary, Kushal Das, gave a talk on his vision for the future of women’s football in India. He spoke of India being in the top 8 of Asian national teams, qualifying for AFC youth tournaments, and most promisingly, the start of a professional women’s league in 2015.

Shockingly, no league was founded in 2015, and India still remains without a professional women’s league, and somehow two concurrent professional men’s leagues, although that is planned to end. It seems to all intents and purposes that Indian women’s football and Bala Devi’s international acclaim are all coming about in spite of the AIFF, rather than thanks to it. In a 2019 interview that she gave to the BBC, Devi spoke of her hopes for the development of the women’s game in India. She hoped that the 2022 U-17 Women’s World Cup, to be hosted in India after the 2020 tournament was cancelled, would keep the momentum going for women’s football.

She said that her ultimate hope is to see a strong Indian women’s football league, where young girls are able to flourish into talented women and showcase their skills at the highest levels of the global game.

Unfortunately, due to the AIFF’s apparent apathy to any improvement in the women’s game, a league seems to be a long way away. Bala Devi can be sure that her move to Rangers and the headlines it has generated have gone some way to increase India’s standing and who knows, maybe some more teams will be sending scouts to India to find some undiscovered talent.

Ngangom Bala Devi has made history, she has made India proud, and she has inspired the next generation of Indian women’s footballers to shoot for the stars.