TIJO JOB has represented India at the SAFF Futsal Championship, and he was an Elfonzite through those years before moving on to his next chapter. Noel Selvaraj is with us today and has captained South United Football Club for two seasons in the Durand Cup, first played in 1888 and the oldest football tournament in Asia.
Neither came here through a quota or a programme with a brochure. They came because we sat across a table from very good footballers quietly preparing to give the game up for a salary, and we decided that was an absurd choice for anybody to have to make.
Before that, we did what most of us do. We stood in the stands, wore the colours, complained that this sport is never developed the way it deserves, and went back to work on Monday. Supporting a team from the terraces is a beautiful thing, and it is also the easiest possible way to care about something.
What I did not expect was how uncomfortable it made parts of the circuit once we put players on the payroll. The objection was that it made the side stronger, and underneath it sat a very old assumption, that the game is still carried forward by those with the money and the brand while talent waits its turn but a lot have followed the path since, and I am glad the change has started.
The Elfonze Cup, in association with NHRD, is a five a side corporate football tournament with a rolling trophy. We start in Bengaluru and we are serious about Dubai being next.
The proceeds go towards a foundation for the sport and its people that I will oversee personally. Every year at the curtain raiser, in front of every participating team, we will publish what that foundation has committed and what it has done with the money.
None of this happens without B S Manu Rao and Saravanam J, who have carried this alongside me for the better part of two decades and made the argument patiently in rooms where football on the agenda beside revenue and headcount sounds like an indulgence.
So on the day we remember Shri Dhyan Chand Ji, I would rather make an offer than post a tribute and go quiet until next August. If you want your people to feel something together that no townhall will ever give them, enter a team or sponsor the initiative. Write to sports@elfonze.com or reach out to Manu or to me.
If there is a company that belongs on that pitch, name them below and I will reach out myself.
Grit has always mattered more to me than glamour and execution more than ego, and this year we are taking both onto the field instead of watching from the stands.