Reportage
Passported out
India spent 18 years turning away footballers who wanted to play for it. A proposal now with the Prime Minister’s Office would reopen the door, if New Delhi and FIFA can agree on what nationality means.
FIFA
Analysis
Eight years of FIFA, one last bet for Zee
A promoter family capped below 4%, a billion-dollar claim in London, a shrinking core business, and an eight-year promise to world football’s governing body. Zee’s FIFA deal reads less like a sports play than a final, high-risk wager on whatever leverage it still retains.
Analysis
The World Cup India will not see, until it does
Nine weeks before kick-off, as the world readies itself for its grandest sporting ritual, India’s screens stay blank. Between what FIFA wants and what this market will pay, a fault line opens that runs deeper than football.