I-League 2017: Five Talking points from Round 7
Another exciting weekend in the I-League saw a re-shuffle in positions in the table, especially towards the top. Minerva started the round off with their first ever victory in the top division of Indian Football, as two teenagers scored for the men from the North against a faltering Mumbai FC side.
Mohun Bagan and Aizawl FC played out a cracker jacker of a game at the Rabindra Sarobar stadium, which the Fed Cup champions eventually won thanks to Daryl Duffy’s late penalty. Shillong too, continued their rise up the table, winning their third-fourth game in a row at home against Churchill Brothers.
Bengaluru FC’s troubles away from home continued, although they came from behind to earn a point, buoyed by a goal by their captain Sunil Chhetri. East Bengal strolled through against bottom of the table Chennai City FC. Let’s have a look at the main talking points from this round of fixtures.
#1 Poor telecast of the I-League games will start affecting audiences
There has been a lot of talk around how Indian Football has been on the up in the past year and so, especially with money being pumped into the sport. The Indian Super League and the big names have helped obviously, plus they FIFA World Cup, but it is sad to see that the top division in the country doesn’t have a proper telecast for the games.
A popular network have bought the rights of telecasting the League as in the last few years, but they have no highlight packages, no half-time shows or any kind of pre-match analysis. In the situation of two games taking place at the same time, despite them having four channels broadcasting in India, one game is chosen over another.
So was the case, when East Bengal vs Chennai City FC and DSK Shivajians vs Bengaluru FC played, as the East Bengal fans got the rub of the green on this occasion. Credit to I-League’s official website take matters into their own hands and stream the game, but all the goodwill they created for streaming the game was lost when the stream broke and showed a ‘404 Error’ on multiple situations.
Not only that, the commentary on many occasions have been poor, the quality of the broadcast so bad that you can’t read the numbers on the back of the player’s jerseys. If you want Indian Football to grow, advertising for three months in a year won’t cut the issue.
