Why the Fifa under-17 World cup in 2017 is going to be way beyond just a 23 –day spectacle , the Tournament Director Javier Ceppi explains
Javier Ceppi has regularly been flying over Indian skies since November 2014. As the Tournament Director of FIFA Under-17 World Cup, which is to be hosted at six venues around the country, he has been spearheading efforts to make the event a memorable sporting extravaganza. It was during one such routine visit to Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium, Kochi, just a few days before the India-Turkmenistan friendly match that we caught up with him at the empty stands overlooking busy men at work.
Ceppi has been in India and looked at us long enough to know a good deal about the country, and that includes our knack of getting things done at the shortest of notice. “ Indians are great at executing the task at hand. I think it is the part of the culture here, you guys can get things done.” But what he doesn’t give us credit for is planning. “ You see structures coming up in a day’s time, impressive feats being accomplished in half the time that it would have actually taken. But what generally happens when things are done in a jiffy is the cost incurred is much higher.” This disregard for planning is what he has been trying to tackle in the last two years, working hand in hand with governments and various agencies, planning out the tiniest of details of the mega sporting spectacle that he is in charge of. Now just a year away from the tournament, the plan is all laid out and it is time to move into overdrive. And Ceppi has pinned his hopes high on the Indian prowess for execution.
This is the first time that a FIFA World Cup is being hosted in the country and the standard of football in exhibition quite obviously would be superior to anything the Indian crowds have ever
witnessed, Ceppi assures us. The rising popularity of football in the country is both a challenge and an opportunity. But Ceppi and his team are not just looking at what would unfold in those 23 days, on the contrary, they are looking to build a football frenzy in the country much before the event kicks off.
Fanning the Flame
Young Indians follow EPL and other European leagues quite religiously, and the number of football fans in the country is on its way up. Ceppi and his team are looking to build on this popularity
For a country like India which has almost 25 percent of its population languishing under the poverty line, football can be the ideal sport as there is hardly anything that you need to play it apart from the ball. And Ceppi, a Chilean, has seen enough footballers from his country, emerging from slums to go on to play for major clubs in Europe, to vouch for the healing touch of football. Sports also gives the importance of collective effort to the kids and can always compensate for a lack of education, says Ceppi.
About the quality of football that is played, he recounts his experiences with the previous editions of the U-17 World Cup. Having seen the teams at play, he tells me that the competing teams can demolish any professional team in the world, at any level.
The Movement
No project can achieve success without active participation from the public and the big corporates. Considering that football is not the money minting machine that cricket is in the country, how is the organizational aspect of it working? Ceppi believes that any business house that associates with the tournament will be able to gain enormous goodwill. But it is important for the business houses to understand that mere posturing and publicity are not what is expected. FIFA expects the corporate houses to work in tandem with other agencies, as an equal stakeholder. This means working for the longer haul and Ceppi admits that not everyone is willing to buy into this philosophy. However, there are few business houses who have the vision to understand what it means to partake in the mission. This is a chance to do real work, and to influence football in its grassroots, a chance that might not come again.
Ceppi and his team of organizers want to make sure that the FIFA Under-17 World Cup is not going to be just another mega sporting event. They see it as the true arrival of the football in India, a movement that will engulf the country’s imagination and may even alter the way sports, especially football, is looked at in the country.
Text: Varun Kannan Photos: Arun Menon