Calicut FC thinking big, eyes the ISL

Calicut FC’s head coach Ian Gillan, left, and team owner V.K. Mathews in Kochi on Monday.
| Photo Credit: Stan Rayan

It’s a high-flying team, the current chart-topper in the Super League Kerala, the first to enter the league’s semifinal and the favourite to lift the title. And clearly, Calicut FC is thinking big.

“One of our goals is to participate in the I-League, we are preparing ourselves to get the capability to reach that level. And the next goal is naturally the ISL,” said V.K. Mathews, the owner of Calicut FC, in a chat with The Hindu here on Monday.

“Essentially, how do we make football a bit more sensitised and make Calicut FC as the club for Kerala, quite similar to (Kerala) Blasters. And the major difference will be, Calicut FC will have more Kerala in it than Blasters in all aspects.”

The club has aggressive plans, and if all the formalities are met, would like to be in the I-League by next year. The club, which has Kozhikode’s EMS Corporation Stadium as its home ground, is planning to improve its training facilities.

“Next year, we will have our own training ground. It will be in Kozhikode but we’ll look at Kochi as well. Getting a practice ground is not that difficult and we need to have a swimming pool and other facilities. And we must have an academy connected to it,” said Mathews.

Mathews feels that it will take a few years for SLK clubs to break even.

“The franchise budget for a SLK club is somewhat the same level as the I-League. I don’t think (SLK) clubs will break even in the first three years. The financial success of this depends on the viewership, the viewership has to go up. For that, we have to sensitise and get more and more people interested in the Super League. One of the ways of doing it is how deeply we are involved with the community, the schools, the academies…when the boys and girls from academies come, then the viewership will go up.”

Ian Andrew Gillan, Calicut’s head coach, feels the SLK — India’s lone State league that allows foreign players — could be a good model for the other States to follow.

“You can probably reduce the number of foreign players but you need foreigners to raise the standard of Indian players and to make the league attractive,” said Gillan.

Gillan, who has worked with clubs in Australia, Indonesia and Nepal, eels that India needs more facilities for the sport.

“With your massive population, if you can embrace that by providing the facilities, give the kids a game and you’ll develop better,” he said.