Footballer Rohit Chand's steady climb to success

Budding footballer   Rohit   Chand is a tremendous talent with great football instincts. His odyssey    to   Pekanbaru in the Island of   Sumatra, Indonesia has   paid off handsomely.

Undeniably, for the young booter this is one big achievement and a huge step towards bigger success. He  has become the first Nepali to play professional football in that part of the world.

As you would have thought, he   has   become   the talk of the   town. This piece of good news comes at   a time when there is nothing positive to report about   Nepali football.

After much suspense and speculation, the 20 year old from Surkhet District in the mid-western region of Nepal was able to   land  a very important contract with the Indonesian club Persatuan Sepak Bola Pekanbaru dan Sekitarnya (PSPS),Pekanbaru.

As for now the contract stands   for 10 months and worth $3,500 a month. Should he perform   with   considerable   aplomb and in all likelihood   the club would extend his contract.

The Surkhet resident faces litmus test in the Indonesian 2013 Super League , and  there is a high expectation in all quarters . He is in a  familiar milieu  in terms of  the intensity of the competition  and  wild and frenzy spectators .

I say this because he carries the experience  of playing in the I-League in India with a somewhat similar ambiance.

At a tender age, Chand has already made   quite   a   name for himself. His rise to prominence has been  steady if not dramatic, since   he started playing club football   in 2009, after Kathmandu   based  Macchindra  Football Club recruited him.

He   proved  to  be  quite  the  worthy and serviceable player for the club in  no time.  It was not long before  he  became the captain of the team.

The same year saw him get selected for the  senior national team. He made his debut against Palestine   in the AFC Challenge Cup held in Kathmandu , and he had the rare distinction of  becoming the youngest player to don  the national team jersey.

Prior to this,  at  international level,  he  represented  Nepal at different age- group levels.

Let us remind ourselves, there was a   point in time, a cloud of uncertainty   hung over the young   footballer’s career.

Had it not been for the then  All Nepal Football Association (ANFA)  Academy  director and veteran international Shyam Thapa, the youngster could not have made the ANFA Academy.

This was reveled   by   long time   football   insider and consultant  Mr.  Biplav Gautam in his story   titled “ Rohit Chand : from Surkhet to Sumatra”. The write –up   chronicles   the   rise  of Chand  from obscurity to fame.

There are very   few   people   with the breadth of knowledge   and understanding about   Nepali football that Mr. Gautam possesses.

Apart from that, he has been associated with Nepali football for a   good period of time and has contributed in his own way to improving grass roots level football.  

The never heard   inside story  of  Chand  should be an eye- opener for the country’s young  footballers who are  chasing a dream.

The young gun owes his footballing career  to  his brother Rabindra Chand, Shyam Thapa, Nabin Chitrakar, CEO of Goal Nepal Bikram Thapa, Biplav Gautam and many more.

After his enrollment at the Academy, Chand’s  willingness, determination and devotion to hard work and excellence  earned him high praise from coaches and fans everywhere.

There was no looking back for the young kid in the block.  He blossomed into an exquisite   and tremendous talent.

From the day he joined the Academy, the laborious and innovative center back   has not looked back.

Barely two years into club   football,  the  youngster   donned the jersey of Hindustan Aeronautic Limited SC in 2010.    Living up to his expectations, he   became an instant success and made a huge impact at the same time.

He carved a niche for himself, and he regularly made it to the   first playing eleven. That was not all. He went on to score   a  superb hat-trick, however,   his individual brilliance  could not save the team from relegation.

Despite   outstanding performance, he failed to win a new contract, thus leaving him without a club. He decided, after much thought, to seek greener pastures in Indonesia with the help of   self- made football agent Nabin  Chitrakar.

Withstanding   initial disappointments   and setbacks, Chand, ultimately   found   a club in PSPS that recognized his footballing qualities. A deal was made and the youngster was more than happy to ink the contract.

This is certainly a matter of pride for every Nepali that Chand has accomplished something no other   local footballer has done to date.

He has age on his side   to become a   far bigger star, and now he stands   on  the   threshold of  becoming a household name in Nepali sport.

Readers  deserve to know something about football in Indonesia and the club Chand is playing for. PSPS  competes in the Indonesian Super League contested by 18 teams.

Before this, the club played in the   2008/2009 Liga Indonesia Premier Division and finished third. The third place finish earned the team promotion to Indonesian Super League.

They were winners of   Liga Indonesia 1^st Division In 1999. The club established in 1955 has currently 22 players in the 2013 Team Roaster, which include five foreign players from Cameroon, South Korea, Mali, Nepal and Senegal.

In a football crazed country  like  Indonesia,  football clubs are actively in pursuit of quality foreign recruits. There are players from more than twenty-eight countries playing for different clubs.

The  tragic death of Paraguayan Diego Mendieta who played for Persis Solo made international headlines recently . Mendieta was  literally abandoned by his club that did not pay his salary for four months.

It is reported that   like  Mendieta  there are many more that are unpaid. The clubs’  financial problems have affected the  players.

As far as   Indonesian football is concerned, it is in turmoil for the last two years. The presence of   two football associations   has put a giant question mark over the future of Indonesian football.

Each   association   conducts  its own professional league,resulting into  two parallel competitions.

The   warring   sides  are      far from willing to sort out their differences, despite a deadline set by FIFA . Should they fail,  it would be a disaster for  the football industry in Indonesia.

FIFA sanction  means  Indonesia  will be barred from all FIFA competitions.

Young  Chand  has a chance to prove his worth ,and I am  confident that he will perform admirably   and commendably.