Fierce loyalty, broken leagues: The two faces of our game | Let’s Talk About Indian Football
As the 2026 FIFA World Cup wraps up, this episode turns the lens on the domestic game – and finds it in crisis. In the latest episode of Let’s Talk About Indian Football, Abhinandan Sekhri speaks to Johnson K, founder of Sportfolio Productions and creator of an independently produced documentary series on India’s regional football cultures, about why the beautiful game here can’t get out of its own way.
Most Indian players are staring at contract uncertainty as clubs baulk at committing long-term to a league whose future is anyone’s guess. Abhinandan lays out a familiar chargesheet too – federation mismanagement, overpaid “prima donna” players, and a shortage of grassroots coaching – as reasons Indian football struggles to hold its own against the international game fans watch on television.
The conversation turns to why some cities sustain fierce football loyalty while others can’t fill stadiums despite thriving grassroots leagues. Fans in Kolkata, Kerala and Bengaluru show up in large numbers compared to Mumbai and Delhi because, according to Johnson, you’re not just going there for the football, you’re going there for the story. Ultimately, it’s identity, not just footballing quality, that draws crowds.
The two also take aim at scheduling negligence, particularly for youth and women’s football, which is played in blistering afternoon heat, and compare the ISL’s threadbare shoulder programming with Doordarshan’s more thoughtful coverage of the second-division IFL.
Watch this interview.
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17 Jul 2026
Will Indian women footballers win a World Cup before the men? | Let’s Talk About Indian Football
As the FIFA World Cup 2026 wraps up, we ask the question India keeps avoiding: what’s stopping us from competing on that stage, and why do we forget football the moment the tournament ends?
In this episode, Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with Pragati Banka – India’s first and only FIFA-licensed football agent, founder of the Equal Play Collective, and an active player in Karnataka’s State Division League – to unpack why Indian women footballers may reach a World Cup before the men, and why almost nobody is talking about it.
Pragati breaks down the brutal reality behind the promise: footballers with day jobs who need approval just to play for the national team, leagues with no official data or scouting systems, matches that aren’t even recorded, and a competition calendar so unpredictable that clubs, players, and sponsors can’t plan a season. She talks about age fraud that masks the gap between junior promise and senior performance, a system that punishes players for speaking up about basic dignity – mattresses, nutrition, pay – and the bias that kept a standout player out of the national team.
But more than a story of neglect, it’s a conversation about grit – about mothers, students, and working professionals playing for the love of the game, about grassroots change starting at home, and about what real investment in women’s football could unlock for the country.
Watch to find out what needs to change before the next big tournament.
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9 Jul 2026
Why talent in India drops off after age 12 | Let’s Talk About Indian Football Part 6
This episode of Let's Talk About: Indian Football cuts through the lazy excuse that India is strictly a cricket nation. The domestic game has massive pockets of fierce fan devotion, yet remains trapped by its own failings. Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with Dr Shaji Prabhakaran, former AIFF Secretary General and current AFC Executive Committee member, alongside Anuj Gupta, president of the Delhi Soccer Association, to diagnose why the sport isn’t capitalising on its potential in India.
Prabhakaran argues India’s failure stems from a narrow approach to youth development that prioritises short-term talent scouting over building a lasting sporting culture. He notes that up to age 11, Indian children match their global counterparts in technical terms, but there is an immediate structural drop-off thereafter. Making matters worse, standalone academies function like “kirana shops” that are isolated from any real competitive calendar, he argues.
Gupta sharpens the point with the age window that matters most: “After 12, there’s only a few percent improvement you can do. We have lost the ability to develop talent after the age of 12.” For him, India’s academies simply haven’t focused hard enough on the 6-12 age bracket, and the ones that exist rarely have the best coaches training there.
On the economics of the sport in India, Prabhakaran rejects the idea that the country lacks demand. With roughly 300 million fans, he remarks, “Football has a bigger story to tell, and we are failing to communicate that.”
Ultimately, both agree the money and passion already exist, but what’s missing is a federation-led push to organise and amplify it.
Listen this interview.
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