It makes sense for legendary athletes and footballers to spend time in India given our respect for their skills
Argentine footballer Lionel Messi with some football fans during the final leg of his ‘GOAT India Tour 2025’, at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium last month. PIC/PTI
It was nice to see Lionel Messi enjoying his time in India a few weeks ago. It was, by all official accounts, a successful trip he will undoubtedly want to repeat as quickly as possible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he bucks the decade-long trend of Indians desperate to permanently leave these shores (over 200,000 give up citizenship every year, for some strange reason) and relocates to an Indian city after retiring, given the type of reception he was given everywhere he went.
In Bombay, the legendary footballer looked genuinely happy as he was paraded around a stadium. It was an exotic experience of the kind all Westerners hope for when they apply for their tourist visas, so I’m glad we rolled out that red carpet for him. I could see how overwhelmed he was, in what I’m sure was a good way. It almost looked like shell shock. He must have also been honoured to meet people as famous and talented as himself — Ajay Devgan, Tiger Shroff, even the wife of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The next time he visits, I hope the government does something more magnanimous, like renaming Kandivli station after him.
Then there was that ultimate honour: the unveiling of a 70-foot statue in Kolkata. Apparently, some people wondered why the statue of an Argentine footballer was necessary, given that Messi isn’t Indian, doesn’t play for India, and has nothing to do with Indian football. I had no such questions because I have always believed that this is a country devoted to honouring sportspeople. They may be foreigners, but all that matters is whether they’re rich and famous. Also, even though India is currently at 142 on the FIFA world ranking for men, it does better than Lesotho, Burundi, Guyana and Moldova, which reveals the seriousness with which we are approaching world domination in that sport.
Here’s another thing that happens when we honour someone like Messi: it sends a strong message that we are a nation committed to excellence. It also diverts attention from unfair accusations of corruption and mismanagement that have been plaguing the All India Football Federation (AIFF) for a long time. According to a newspaper report published in July this year, the men’s national team don’t have a coach, and the country’s top football competition is in danger of collapsing, but those are precisely the kind of problems that can be tackled by putting up statues of foreign players.
I don’t know anything about Kolkata, but I assume the city has a lot of football grounds, training facilities, and access to professional equipment to foster the kind of sporting culture that ends up creating champions. Bombay lags on this front because open spaces tend to get in the way of the real estate industry, but I foresee a time when every suburb will offer young Bombayites access to the right kind of infrastructure too. India has never played in the FIFA World Cup finals, but I’m pretty sure that has nothing to do with the government’s priorities.
There is a lot of attention paid to sports here, but it is often lost in the noise about mismanaged sporting bodies, weak investment at a grassroots level, or unfounded accusations of nepotism involving the sons of politicians. Just because seven or eight sporting bodies are headed by talented young men who happen to be related to cabinet ministers doesn’t mean a country isn’t aware of the importance of merit.
I genuinely hope Messi goes back to Argentina and tells the rest of his team about this trip. I hope more legendary sportspeople like him — Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, Novak Djokovic, Usain Bolt, Simone Biles, Emma Raducanu, and a host of winners like them — start to spend time in India so they can be inspired and spread the word too. The quality of air may be a minor inconvenience (a few recent cricket matches have reportedly been cancelled because of the AQI), but I don’t see why health concerns should get in the way of appreciation from a sports-loving country.
Here’s another reason I think India takes sports more seriously than most other things like healthcare, food security, or hygiene: Messi’s statue, which is supposedly the largest statue of him in the world, was built in just over a month. Imagine how committed one has to be for that to happen. In Bombay, for instance, it can take more than two years to just replace paving blocks on a street in Bandra.
When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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