The Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on a state visit to Germany held consultations with chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany besides signing 12 MoUs and agreements covering diverse sectors.
At a joint press conference at the signing ceremony, Mr. Modi amongst other things highlighted the success of Germany in football and asked for support in the beautiful game for India, “We are also working with Germany to improve our sporting prowess, especially in football.”
Germany are the current FIFA World Cup champions, having won the tournament in Brazil in 2014; have a strong football culture with a strong national league, the Bundesliga.
“Very few people would know that Bundesliga has a widespread following in India,” Mr. Modi added in an interesting fact which shows the growing interest in German football in India.
But there have been numerous cooperations between Germany and India in the field of football. Not to forget is that India’s first-ever football website IndianFootball.Com was launched in Germany in 1998 or Bundesliga champions FC Bayern Munich, the most successful club in Germany and a European giant, has toured India with different teams five times from 2005 to 2012, while also running their sponsors adidas run FCB Youth Cup.
There have been MoUs and partnerships between the All India Football Federation from the Indian side and the German FA (DFB) and DFL (Bundesliga), but nothing long term could be worked out.
Maybe now with the full support of the Indian and German governments something long-term could be worked out between the two nations, which would be benificial for Indian football and for the German side as well.