Click to play videoFIFA President Sepp Blatter was in India on a four-day visit as he sought to change the face of Indian football. After announcing a financial roll-out for the game in the country, the FIFA top boss said that it was a monumental task for Indian football to wake up from its slumber. CNN-IBN's Sanjeeb Mukherjea caught up with him for this exclusive chat.
Sanjeeb Mukherjea: What is your exact vision for Indian football in the years to come?
Sepp Blatter: I have a vision, but what I have seen now is that what India need is help. They need to wake the "sleeping giant" up now, because Indian football at a certain time was a very important part during the Asian Cup in 1961 or 1962. But now, where is the Indian national team? Where are the Indian clubs?
Therefore, something must be done. We have realised in FIFA when going into the geographical map, that we have neglected, I have to say, we have neglected the 'giant' India a little bit, also the sub-continent, with more than 1 billion people. We are coming a little bit late, but then we will have more speed to go forward in a project which is called "Win in India with India".
We will do it together. We have the Asian Football Confederation, together with India, we will have to do it. Not only with football, we need the support from all other components. This is our society finally - social, culture, economy and politics - everybody shall be together and we need people to support it, because we are suffering here for the popularity of another sport called cricket.
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