Recession – (foot) Balls to you

Final sequel to Champions -- Game Changers

Nothing derogatory about the heading, but pure play economics that is making even the shrewdest of businessmen look ordinary and their company’s balance sheet even worse. Let me throw some figures that have been paid to some footballers in the last few weeks. £80 million was the amount paid by Real Madrid the Spanish football club to buy Christiano Ronaldo from Manchester United. Close to £50 million paid by the same club to buy the Brazilian footballer Kaka. Where is recession, I can’t even smell it.

Ronaldo was voted the best English Footballer, the Best European footballer and the World footballer of the year, all three in the same year in 2008. The record transfer makes him the richest transfer in footballing history and has certainly changed the rules of the game, in context to what a player need to be paid for a transfer from another club. Mind it, he does not get even a penny for the deal and all the money goes to his older club. So what does he get – rumours are that he might be paid upto £ 3, 00,000 a week plus bonuses and please don’t forget the bucks he makes from endorsements. Let me do some math for you and convert them into Indian rupees. Real Madrid paid a whopping 640 crore rupees to buy him from Manchester United and pays him a salary of 2.5 crore rupees a week to play for them. Another news I read today that an English club, owned by Arabs were willing to pay an English footballer £4, 00,000 a week if his transfer deal goes through.

The amount Real Madrid have so far spent in the transfer window this year alone is £200 million, translating into 1600 crore rupees. The recently opened Worli sea link in Mumbai was built on a budget of 1300 crore rupees – Man!!, no wonder we are a poor country. We can’t even spend money on our infrastructure, in comparison to the money that gets spent buying football players in Europe.

Children across the globe want to become a Ronaldo or a Kaka, fanatics rush into stadiums to watch their games, TV viewership is astounding, the memorabilia sales of their clubs are unbelievable and all this because they are true champions. To add to this, I try and watch every Manchester United game, am a true fan you see (There is a saying in England – ‘You can even divorce your wife, but do not change the club you support’) and I have even bought memorabilia of the top 4 footballing clubs in England.

Mind blowing how champions become game changers in their field and influence the Junta.

Champions – Game Changers

This blog is a sequel to the previous one.

In the last one we read about Roger Federer, his successful and illustrious career and how difficult it is to decipher the functionality of a champion’s brain. In this blog let’s look at individual superstars from a team game and how they have changed the game on its head, both from a fanaticism and a financial stand point.

Ideally like any Indian am starting from cricket and certainly my favourite Sachin Tendulkar. All of you reading this blog know, how cricket in an undefined religion and one religion that unites this glorious country. Till the beginning of the nineties, crickets was just a game and only if you had the real talent were you allowed to play the game against education in India. The majority of the cricketers came from north India and the big towns and majorly dominated by, then Bombay. Education was always first to the middle class Indian, than cricket till a little wonder, a genius called Tendulkar arrived onto the big stage from the same cricketing city – Bombay.

He then really turned the rules of the game and is certainly, one big game changer not only for cricket in India but for Cricket and cricketers across the globe. His genius and his game, not only got him fame but financials the sport never imagined. If my memory serves me right, transworld international a sports consultancy headed by the lat Mark Mascarehnas signed him up for a record 960 crores, for a 5 year deal in the mid nineties. He pulled in crowds to the stadiums, TV viewership sky rocketed (Thanks to Cable TV) and the BCCI were raking in the moolah. Not that India was winning every major tournament, infact they won hardly a handful, but he re-christened a sport once called the gentleman’s game – more a pass time sport created by the royal English, to one where you had to compete to be the best, which helped to cash in for sure. The prize money of matches grew significantly and what, the victorious world cup winning Indian team made, was now being paid for Ranji trophy matches. Middle class families in India looked at an opportunity to push their boys into the sport and spend on them, and education, was now not the real front runner it used to be, at least when compared to the eighties. Boys just wanted to be a Tendulkar, parents wanted the moolah and viewers now want entertainment, thanks to T20 rather than cricket. Even if you hate him, you must salute this genius for changing the game to what it is today.

He certainly is a champion in my book.

In the next blog you will have a feel into international Club Football and what champions are made of.

Champions – Winners and Game Changers

Champions – the word resurrects and resonates POWER. The intent of this blog is look at how difficult it is to interpret what champions are made of and what could be inside their head, which separates them from the ordinary. The field am taking on in this blog in is international sport – an area of keen interest to me.

Let’s start with the latest headline to hit the sport’s fraternity – Tennis and Wimbledon. By the time this blog hits your mailbox, am certain you would have read about the remarkable win, Roger Federer had last night in the Wimbledon men’s finals beating Roddick. The win catapults him back to world No. 1 which he had for a consecutive 250 weeks plus – phenomenal for any individual. But that alone does not make him great, but to win 15 single’s men’s grand slams, making him the only one to achieve this feat makes him the greatest. This feat was achieved in front some of the best tennis stars the game has ever witnessed, for the likes of Sampras, Borg, Laver, Becker, Edberg and others, and in front of superstars of other sports like, Sachin Tendulkar, Micheal Ballack – the German football captain and Chelsea Midfielder and of course Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United.

So what makes Federer the champion? Books have been written trying to decipher what’s inside a champion’s mind, millions of analyses have gone into find the functioning of the brain, of a champion, but none have arrived with a true cut answer – we know how infinite and miraculous the human brain can be. Let me relate to a book I had read called ‘BLINK’, by Malcolm Gladwell, where the author through significant different researches tries to find an answer to the question we are talking about. He talks about how successful ‘SNAP’ judgements, made by human beings are, in comparison to the one’s we logically arrive at. Let me illustrate this with an example from a lay man’s life – do we logically probe ourselves before we propose to guy or a gal, its instinctive and that what blink is all about. To put the same into perspective, with respect to last night’s match, Roddick flinched twice – leading 6-2 in the second set tie breaker, allowing Federer to win the set and last game of the match. Both time Federer blinked to be successful. The second set win nearly demoralised Roddick out of the match. He was nearly mentally disintegrated by Federer’s play. Mental disintegration – a term very synonymous with the Australian cricket team and Steve Waugh.

Commentators and analysts often speak about the champion’s self belief in his abilities and self confidence. Let me throw something at you, totally out of the box, for you to chew – I believe, self belief in one’s own abilities, comes from not succumbing to one’s fear of failures, which is a direct relationship of being in the present and not relating to past events of one’s life. We have often heard commentators state a player being “In the Zone” – what does that mean? In pure terms, one being with oneself in that very moment of life as life happens, and not even contemplating a nano second about the past or the future.

Now let’s look at self confidence. It’s totally the reverse of what you just read. Self confidence arises from the fact that you had done a good job of the same event in the past. Putting it into perspective, Federer’s confidence arises from the number of wins he has had under his belt in the past years and hours of practise he has put in. It’s so paradoxical that, even ontology can be given a run. But to look deeper, we can argue that self confidence come from looking at the abilities that you have versus the task you have to render. If you look carefully, I have not used the word capability, as, this word arises from the comparison of your abilities to either your own past, or with a friend, a peer, a relative etc. So capability becomes an evil and does not allow you to be in the present or be in your zone, but be in the zone you are comparing yourself with.

So when we can’t decipher on how a champion illustrates his self belief or confidence or for, matter of fact, we can’t decipher the ideal meaning of self belief and self confidence how are we going to look into the functioning of a champion’s brain.

The struggle into this investigation continues and champions keep arising every moment.

The next blog will look at how these champions become game changers.

Cricket : Is it about the game or about the INDIAN Cricket Team

Pakistan have won the T20 Cricket World Cup. Great for a country struggling to cope up with a sport overturned because of terrorism. Who can forget the shooting of the Sri Lankan cricket team a few months back. Younis Khan in his post match interview requested nations to come to Pakistan again to play cricket, to give a chance for the youth in his country to get to the game instead of guns. A chance for the youth to play T20 instead of terrorism. Valid request isn’t it.

But this blog isn’t about Pakistan, but about the Indian Media. I woke up this morning and picked up the newspaper and did not find Pakistan’s victory mentioned in any form of glory that is associated with the sport called cricket (a religion of sorts in our country). There are newspapers sporting bigger pictures of Saina Nehwal than the victorious team photo of the Pakistan Cricket Team. Saina Newhal – who?, she is the latest badminton sensation in India and has won her first big tournament.

Let’s assume the Indian team had won the cup last night, wouldn’t have every newspaper, magazine, TV Channel and Websites run riot splashing photographs, articles, interviews etc. Guaranteed they would have had the front pages covered with the victory story. So why don’t we do it when another country wins it – isn’t about the sport and not about a country. Yes, I know we are in India and it’s about the national team, but the way we show double standards towards the sport vs. other countries in the sport is a clear demarcation. The IPL winners had more first page coverage, for sure the Deccan Chronicle did as it was their team.

You can argue with me stating that “The HINDU” did not carry Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination in its front page, but at that time, the paper used to carry classifieds on its front page. So the question is, is India a cricket frenzy nation or is India an Indian Cricket team frenzy nation – your judgement is as good as mine.

The Indian media has been on the forefront of a lot of irresponsibility. The 26/11 attacks were beamed live giving access to the terrorists hold up inside the hotel and building with their colleagues on the other side of the border. The focus to run programs minute on minute, even if its useless like the Shiney Ahuja case and we can write pages of lack of good stories. Is the India media getting stuck to competition rather than looking for a story that would get them the viewership – isn’t about editorial ship or is it about economics?. I don’t wont to beat the India media out, for, they certainly are in the top, if not the best, among the worlds best.

We know that country’s inviting India to play in their home country get more crowd coming in to watch cricket than their home country playing with another country, barring a few rivalries. So again isn’t about the Indian cricket team then. We certainly know the muscle power of the BCCI and how they leverage the same in the cricketing fraternity. Can’t we envisage the IPL and how there twisting the arms of the ICC to include the same in the future tours program.

So the question is – is it cricket, the Indian Cricket team or the latest sensational news which sells. We are diluting the spirit of the sport, which certainly is the bastion of all sports in India and cricket in India has far more reach than the BJP’s poll manifesto.

IPL and BPL

Am back to one of my more interested domains in this blog -- International Sport.

To begin with, the latest new's breaker in all channels, apart from the general elections in India is the Indian Premier League. As all of us now know that it has been decided that the IPL is moving to South Africa for its second edition, I would like to place my view points and raise a few questions about the politics and money behind this sport in India.

My initial view is that the league must continue for the design, the fans and the sport as a whole. But is it right for us to have it outside India, when the inaugural edition was created on the hype that the format itself is based on city loyalty and the franchisee mode which is replicated from the Barclay's Premier League -- BPL -- The English football league (Am gonna write about the title race after this). Who can forget Dhoni doing the Rajnikanth tricks for the franchisee advertisement -- Enna Rascala or SRK singing in Bengali. Where is it all disappeared.

Is the IPL getting politicised because of the money involved in it or because Sharad Pawar the Head of BCCI is not in tune with the other congress led states like AP and Maharashtra. The schedule of the IPL was listed much earlier than the dates of the election and isn't the government aware of the same, not taking anything away that the general elections is of paramount importance than a sport or any event in India. But is cricket just a sport?, when we, a billion Indians, feel it to be a religion -- one of the few factors, for which the country unites and comes to a standstill. To be really honest, i have not seen scores of janta standing in front of a electronic's retailer selling TV's watching the results of the elections dealt immaculately by Prannoy Roy or any other channel than that of a Sehwag or a Sachin sizzling away. Its cricket all the way my dear readers.

Whats the reason that the IPL has been dealt so shabbily by the home ministry or is it the end of Lalit Modi's dominance on cricket ???

Now moving onto the BPL.

Its been a fantastic fortnight for the Mersey side, Liverpool, first a drubbing of Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League, than a rout of the Red Devils, Manchester United at Old Trafford -- not many teams have done that in the past and will do in the future (Am a hardcore, Man U fan) and to close all, a killer against Aston Villa with a 5 Nil score line. 13 Goals in 3 games -- is this the beginning of their peak form this season or is it the end of the gun powder they possess.

Its a one point lead for Man U now with a game in hand and only Man U can lose the title this year. A fantastic finish to the best football league in the world awaits all of us.

Adios for now, Keep Watching this space.