Bhupati's Globosport to foray into football

Mahesh Bhupathi's Globosport India is all set to promote football in the country and has lined up around Rs 50 crore for popularising the game and creating a market for it.

Consumer promotion campaigns are planned across the country to evoke mass interest. The promotions would be followed by a nation-wide talent hunt to identify and groom promising young footballers.

"Football has the potential to become the second biggest sport in India. But to achieve that, it is important that companies develop strategies that go beyond television,"said Mahesh Bhupathi, CEO of Globosport.

"As of now, Indians only watch football from their homes which makes the sport extremely consumption driven . Our focus is to change this mindset and make it more participatory," he said.

The promotion of young Sania Mirza as the face of Indian tennis proved to be the catalyst in the mushrooming of tennis acadamies and coaching centres across the nation and the company is planning something similar for popularising football as well.

Anirban Das Blah, Vice President, Globosport, admitted the importance of launching a face that would sell football in the country.

"We are serious about creating an icon who would be able to cut through diverse backgrounds and come to represent a new preference for the sport in India, "he said. This, he added, would be vital to the sport's growth even if it involves waiting a while for the right mixture of talent and timing.

The induction of Mary Pierce and Martina Navratilova in the past hyderabad open tournaments reaped rich dividends for Globosport and similar plans are afloat for football.

The company is in talks with Manchester United, Real Madrid and other frontline English and Spanish clubs to bring about joint initiatives in training, infrastructure and promotion of the sport in the country.

This would enable players from the country to go on exchange programmes for short and long durations to international clubs.

The company is also in the process of roping in well-known names from the international fraternity to lend some celebrity power to the entire excercise.

The company endorses the view that the market for football in India would grow only when it is pitted directly with cricket and Bollywood.

"Our immediate objective is to make tennis and football the number two and number three sports in India and garner 10-15 per cent of sports management pie in 3 years time, "said Bhupathi while declaring that tennis in India has grown by 600 per cent in the last three years which could be the case for football in the times to come.