Why Bala Devi to Rangers is watershed moment for Indian football

The 29-year-old shall stand as an idol to many young and aspiring female players in the country.

In a video on YouTube titled ‘Bala Devi First Day’ on the Rangers Football Club channel, she’s seen receiving the ball with a deft touch and playing a pass with the side of her foot. She continues to run to take her position for the next part of the session. She is part of a training drill with Rangers Women's Football Club, a team that plays in the Scottish Women’s Premier League. It’s historic, in more ways than one!

Later in the video, she’s also seen enjoying jokes with her teammates in the canteen and looks comfortable. These details may seem irrelevant, but are very important. They show hard work. They show grit. They show perseverance and they show warmth of acceptance.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keBrbJLxLLs

Hailing from a small village called Irengbam near Imphal in Manipur in India, Ngangom Bala Devi has gone places. Called up to the Indian national team at just 15, she proved her talent to the world pretty early. Making her debut in 2005, she has already served the national team for 15 years and looks good to go for a handsome few more.

Bala has been a striker all her career, but she’s not poor in creativity. Looking at that, Rangers gave her the No. 10 jersey, globally given to the most creative player on the team bus, but let’s not jump to conclusions yet. Her first assist came on her debut and her link-up play with striker Megan Bell is already starting to show positive signs.

“Here I’m playing both as a striker and attacking midfielder. I’m getting used to both positions. I don’t have a fixed position that I need to play throughout the season,” Bala Devi said in an interview.

She signed the dotted line in January, but the amount of sweat it has taken has gone on for years. She, on January 22, became the first Indian woman footballer to sign a professional contract for any overseas club. She’s also Rangers’ first Asian footballer, another feather in her glittering cap.

The former Manipur Police striker has scored prolifically for the national team, with 52 goals in just 58 appearances, making that a strike rate close to 0.9. She’s the highest goal-scorer in national women’s football in South Asia. At the domestic level, she's hit the net over 100 times in 120 games, making her one of the most prolific strikers in South Asia. Moreover, Bala Devi was also awarded the AIFF’s Women’s Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016.

But these are just stats for many and we’ll look beyond that. After Aditi Chauhan and Tanvie Hans played non-professional football in England, women's football in India needed this moment. It needed its moment of crossing the threshold, to push players with that extra motivation. It came from Manipur and it came in the form of a steely warrior. 

Manipur has multiple district-level leagues for women, but it is one of the very few states in India to have that. The Indian Women’s League runs for just three weeks, when global leagues run for anywhere between six to nine months. Matching that duration, too, would be massive. 

The female striker did a commendable job by impressing the scouts at the club, successfully passing the trials in November 2019. 

With the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup set to take place in the country, it’ll not just bring the global view on the country and its budding, young, women footballers. Who knows, one day, one of them may sign for Liverpool or Barcelona (if rules permit, that is). The federation must invest more on the women’s game and ensure they’re groomed well for the future. The competition is comparatively lesser and India could well become a top 30 team in the years to come.

Indian women can now dream. They can now aspire to do things. They can now take the flight out and put Indian football on the global map. They’ve seen an example and the urge to outdo someone great kindles genius and hard work. They can now feature in official videos. They can now share the table with international club players. They can now smile on a joke made in a different language. They know they can pull it off. It was impossible, until Bala Devi scaled it. And now, you can.