I-League return, youth development, future plans: Dempo SC CEO Pradhyum Reddy on climbing the Indian Football ladder
Three-time I-League champion Dempo SC is set to return to the league after a gap of nine years. In 2016, the club had decided to not take part in the league after the All India Football Federation had failed to live up to its promise of enforcing promotion to the Indian Super League.
The club focussed on youth development and strengthening the side’s base which eventually bore fruit when it clinched the 2022 Goa Pro League title – Dempo’s first GPL triumph since 2011.
It then played in the inaugural season of the I-League 3, the country’s fourth-tier, in 2023 and earned promotion to the I-League 2. It was in the 2023-24 of I-League 2 that Dempo finished second in the points table and earned its way back to the I-League through promotion.
Someone who has been a part of the club’s patient process to getting back to the top echelons of Indian football is Pradhyum Reddy.
The 48-year-old was brought in as the club’s CEO back in 2022. Pradhyum isn’t a stranger to the Indian ecosystem, and knows a thing or two about guiding a team to promotion. In 2011, he guided Shillong Lajong to the I-League from the I-League 2nd Division.
Later, he also served as the Assistant Coach at now defunct ISL side FC Pune City.
Ahead of the 2024-25 I-League season, Sportstar caught up with him to pick his brains on the journey he has had with the five-time national champion and what the club has in store for the future.
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Q- It’s been a little over two years since you were appointed as the Dempo SC CEO. If you could go back in time and recall how you were approached for the job. What were your initial thoughts and how has it been so far?
A- I always wanted to get back into club football after the stint with FC Pune in the Indian Super League, which was a bit disappointing. You want a club with stability and that’s why you start looking beyond the top tier…you look at clubs that have been in the Indian ecosystem for many years. There’s also an opportunity to invest for the long term. It’s very difficult in some of the clubs at the top of the pyramid to go and implement changes where you’re looking at a five or 10-year-plan.
You’re looking to develop players at an academy. Many of them don’t have that kind of holistic planning, how you’d like a football club to have, but Dempo has had that. When I joined we were in the fourth tier of Indian football. There was an opportunity to go from the fourth to the third to the second. And now we’re in the second tier. That’s what attracted me to it. I’m pretty happy with the progress of these two years.
Q- You’ve been an assistant coach and a technical director as well at different clubs. How different is being a CEO from those roles?
A- At FC Pune City, it was a weirdly titled role. I was the assistant coach for the Indian Super League team because you had to have a local person as an assistant coach. But at the same time, I was technical director/Head of Youth. The seasons were short and their assumption was as soon as the season ended, ‘We’ll make you do X, Y and Z’. At the same, if you think about it, I was the one making a lot of the calls on which players had to be signed during the draft because the knowledge of Indian players was my expertise, not of the foreign coach. So you are kind of making decisions that a CEO would make.
We made decisions with the youth in terms of them competing at a higher level. We felt in the Indian ecosystem, young players wouldn’t get a chance in the Indian Super League. The best option for their development would be to put them into an I-League team. The likes of Asish Rai, Gaurav Bora, Sahil Panwar and a few others were sent out on loan to clubs like Chennai City FC, Minerva, Indian Arrows at the time. If you look back, a lot of them are playing not just in the Indian Super League, but have played for India. Those are decisions, you wouldn’t say are in the purview of an assistant coach, but I was making them at an ISL club anyway. Now, I have the title that goes with making those decisions. It’s just nomenclature.
Q- Head coach Samir Naik has been here for a long time, both as a player and a coach. What were the conversations you had with him at that point?
A- Like most coaches, you’re ambitious and you want to move on to the next level. They had done well in the Goa Pro League but hadn’t won it in about 10 years. He wanted to be able to compete at the highest level, which is the I-League. A lot of teams were going for the direct entry option, and he wanted to see if we could explore going directly into the I-League.
I think as a management, we made a decision that if we’re going to do it (qualify for I-League), it has to be organic. Win the Goa Pro League, qualify legitimately as champions of Goa and go into the second division and work our way up. That was the message. The primary target has been achieved.
Q- Last year, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) barred overseas players from playing in state leagues and I-League 2. However, foreigners are allowed in the I-League. What is the transfer strategy there? Is Dempo looking at signing foreign signings or will it go with an all-Indian squad?
A- We felt if we went with an all-Indian squad, it would put a lot of pressure on the team to perform at the highest level. If you make that decision, you’ve got to stick with it. There’s no point in pressing the panic button during the January window and then trying to rectify it. It’s about finding the right balance. Obviously, we want to develop our players. We’ve got a very good under-21 team that did well in the local league and the Reliance Foundation Development League (RFDL). We want to make sure that at least five players from our academy team are in the I-League squad. There’s no mandate from the league, it’s our own mandate. We will look for quality in other parts of India in areas where we feel we can strengthen. Ultimately clubs have to be sustainable. It’s very difficult to be profitable, but you’ve got to try. That means youngsters coming through that can do well in the I-League and then move on to other clubs. Coming to the question about foreigners, we will sign them, but we want to sign the right ones. We can sign up to six, but we’re deciding not to because if only four can play, there’s no point filling your squad with players and denying the chance for Indian players to come through. The argument with some clubs is ‘If a foreigner gets injured, then we don’t have a direct replacement’. Well, that’s what your young Indian player is for. That’s our model.
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Q- Dempo is returning to I-League after nine years. What are your aspirations from this season? Will you go for the jugular and aim for the promotion?
A- I think the first priority for any promoted club anywhere in the world is to not get relegated. If you can get promoted and win the league in the same season, fantastic. Of course as a team, you’re going to aim to win every game and you’re going to try and finish as high up on the table as possible. We’ve played FC Goa in preseason and then in the Bandodkar Trophy. It wasn’t too much of a mismatch. We played against Sporting Club de Goa, which is a second division team now and we’re in the I-league. We were better than them in that game. We understand there are teams like Inter Kashi, Gokulam Kerala, and Sreenidi Deccan that might look to go for the jugular. They’ve spent a lot on the transfer window, made big moves. But that’s the beauty of the I-League. There’s a little bit more of an open playing field where good coaching, good structures can get success as opposed to in the top tier and in the Indian Super League, where the teams with the might tend to finish on top.
Q- You mentioned relegation. Do you think ISL is ready for relegation right now?
A- I’m not sure it’s ready for it. I think it’s still… I say only the 11th year. Once there is stability in all the leagues, then I think it makes sense for you to have it. Look, teams have got to be happy there’s promotion. Last year, Punjab went up, struggled in the first season, but they stabilised. And by stabilising now, they’re doing very well. Mohammedan Sporting have come up this season. They’ve done okay in the first few games and this is their season to stabilise. Could having relegation from the first year itself negatively impact someone like a Mohammedan or a Punjab? You want to see clubs investing in infrastructure in the future. I don’t see relegation as the be all and end all. I don’t think it’s the most necessary thing that is required for Indian football. There are much more pressing things that are needed. Once we get to about 16 teams, I think that’s a fair balance. Then, we can look at having two, three stable leagues.
Q- In the past, you’ve spoken about clubs having their own facilities. Dempo has the Ella Academy. Will we see any development on the stadium front from the club?
A- Last time Dempo was in the I-League, the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Margao was used. We’re trying to play our I-League home games at our ground. We played all our second division and third division games at our home ground. Recently, the India under-20 team and the Indian women’s team have been training at our facilities. We are going to invest so that we have some of the top facilities in the country, and you can only invest in them if you’re allowed to use them. If you have to spend money on a JLN or a Tilak Maidan, you’re putting money into a facility that’s not yours. As soon as the off-season begins, those facilities deteriorate and then you’ve got to start again. It’s not an investment, it’s just a spend. These are all 25 to 30 year old stadiums. They’re not in good shape. I don’t believe we need to be playing in 50-60,000 capacity stadiums with the exception of the Kolkata teams or maybe Kerala Blasters. These are built for multi-sport events or national games with a track in between that doesn’t give an atmosphere. Some of the best football in this country is played at the Kolkata Maidan grounds, in Mizoram’s local leagues.
Q- Ahead of the 11th edition of the ISL, a promo came out which had former players like Sunil Chhetri, Bhaichung Bhutia, cricketers, and Bollywood stars. On the other hand, there’s uncertainty around I-Leaugue’s start date and official broadcaster. Do you think these issues impact the clubs?
A- At the moment, a lot of the clubs are together, we’re all united. We’re trying to lobby for better TV production. I think the deal was already done with Sony, there’s just certain technicalities that need to be figured out. The original start date is supposed to be the 19th of October and we all felt that if we start then, we obviously need the schedule before. Due to all of the things being put in place, it might get pushed back by a week or two. However, a week or two means we’re into the peak holiday season in India when prices go up. There’s a logical reason for a little bit of a delay. I think all the parties are trying to move in the right direction. If we can get somebody like Sony on board for the next three seasons, the I-League will become a better product and it’ll grow.
I don’t think we need Bollywood or players of the past to promote the I-League. I think the quality of the games is good enough. The fans are there, they’ll come to watch. It’s just a case of getting a good broadcaster on board and making sure as many of the matches can be broadcast, preferably in a weekend heavy format. I think football every day is not good for the fans or for the players or anybody in the ecosystem. We’ve got to move away from this format which suits other franchise sports. It works for kabaddi, but doesn’t for football.
Q- Are there any immediate plans at Dempo SC which we can expect? Be it infrastructure or otherwise, anything in the works?
A- From an infrastructure point of view, we want to try and get to a stage where we become a bit similar to clubs abroad where we have multiple training grounds. This will help multiple teams of our own train at the same time and other teams can use our facilities as well. We can pick up some best practices from some of these clubs and coaches who come over for their preseason. Our national teams can’t just have one national training center in Kolkata. We’d like to host them as we’ve done this year.
We want to also become a place for coaching courses in this part of the country, where people can come and avail all the facilities under one roof. There are plans to have youth leagues, like baby leagues and conduct something where more kids are using our facility and playing. Us playing in the I-League is just the tip of our little pyramid. We need to make sure that we build the base of the pyramid.
