The impact of India’s growing sports tourism market on football

Of the 1.8 million Qatar World Cup 2022 tickets sold across the first two phases, more than 23,500 were bought by fans in India.

After the first phase of ticketing, India was ranked seventh in ticket sales.

At Russia 2018, almost 18,000 fans from India were in attendance. Across all non-competing countries, India had the third highest number of fans in Russia, behind only the United States and China.

So what drives the fans of a country, whose women’s side is ranked 58th and the men’s team is at 104th and has never played in a World Cup, to the world’s biggest sporting event in such big numbers?

It’s a strange dichotomy best illustrated by the fact that the national men’s team captain Sunil Chhetri had to post a video through the Indian Football Team Twitter handle urging fans to attend the team’s Asian Cup qualifiers in Kolkata in June this year.

There’s something pitiful about the video, that one of the country’s greatest sportspersons, a man who sits third on the list of active international goal scorers, has to plead to fans to come and watch his team in the flesh.

While the video had the desired effect and led to sellout crowds, it is reflective of the state of Indian football.