ISL: North East United wants to represent a region, not just a city

What Haryana is to wrestling, the North East is to football. In this often forgotten part of india, love for football far exceeds love for cricket. They take great pride in the fact that for over two decades a boy from their region, Bhaichung Bhutia, was the face of Indian football. The region continues to be one of the main feeders to the Indian national team. The current Indian national football team has six players from the North East. India’s U-14 and U-16 team has approximately 70 percent of the players coming from this region. This is testimony to the fact that these eight sisters (Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal, Meghalaya and Sikkim) encourage their kids to play football. [caption id=“attachment_1751295” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Spanish left back Joan Capdevila with the North East United logo behind him. AFP[/caption] Bollywood actor John Abraham and Larsing Ming of the I-League club Shillong Lajong want to provide this football crazy region another incentive to deepen their love affair with the beautiful game. They call it North East United. North East United is an Indian Super League football franchise that will be based out of Guwahati, Assam. As a marketing representative at the club explained: “The club name North East United FC is to represent our vision for the team which is to unite the eight states of the North East region through football and leverage this unity to win the Hero ISL. Our anthem is an extension of the pride of the region. We are calling ourselves eight states, one United and the anthem is also named “We are eight, We are United.” This idea of a united North East is manifested in the team logo. The team logo is a simple crest with eight stars, one for each state. The crest uses the colors red, black and white. The simplicity of the team is very refreshing. The team believes in the virtues of hard work and focus. Both John and Ming are self made men and they would be well versed with the importance of these virtues. It is also refreshing to see a team trying to unite different cities rather than divide them, as is the case with most city based franchises. However rumor has it that certain sections of the Assam government were not very thrilled with the name choice. They felt Guwahati’s name should have been reflected in the name of the club. The reason for choosing not be associated with any one city is explained by John: “North-East is the hotbed for football. It is a region that has often been disconnected from the rest of India and we, with NorthEast United FC, plan to bring North-East to the rest of India.” John wants to present the North East as one cohesive unit and make Indians from other states sit up and take notice of this region. The North East is a region that has been ignored for far too long. It comes as an afterthought to most people inhabiting the Indian “mainland”. Having a club representing the region in a mainstream Indian tournament with plenty of TV coverage should help bring positive attention to the North East. If the team also happens to win the league, that would be an added bonus.