Romeo fernandes transfermarkt

Mumbai: Romeo Fernandes has just become the first Indian to play for a top-flight Brazilian club, but it is too early to say if this is a watershed moment for Indian football.

There has been a concentrated effort to popularize football in India in the past decade. The growing popularity of European football leagues here has spurred big European clubs to start training camps in some Indian cities. Meanwhile, attempts have been made to make Indian domestic football more attractive, beginning with the inception of the I-League, now the country’s primary football competition, in 2007. All this culminated in the Indian Super League (ISL), held for the first time last year, which saw local footballers play alongside global stars, albeit mostly retired ones, for celebrity-owned franchises.

The question long-time Indian football fans have had is whether all these would lead to actual progress for Indian footballers. In the past month, two have made their professional debuts for top-flight foreign

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