Indian football team captain Sunil Chhetri during his last match against Kuwait in the FIFA Qualifier at the Salt Lake Stadium at Kolkata.
| Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy
A sports press conference is a contested zone. There are, in essence, two interested parties: the journalist who is forever on the lookout for a headline-worthy quote or a slip-of-the-tongue statement, and the athlete who is there as the single access point of the team and with the sole aim of controlling the narrative.
Equally, it is a place where relationships are built and mutual respect established. Routine appearances at press meets often convey your journalistic seriousness and rigour, and the player in turn starts looking at you as a constructive critic and not an adversary. Land a few minutes early, there may even be an opportunity for an informal chat.
In the eight-and-a-half years I have spent covering Sunil Chhetri, as leader of the Indian National football team and as talisman of Indian Super League (ISL) side Bengaluru FC (BFC), I have experienced both facets. He was the beating heart of both country and club, and everyone wanted a piece of him. And Chhetri obliged, making blurb-writers happy, but mostly on his own terms, and with due respect to the fourth estate.
On the day of his retirement from international football on June 6, he even wrote a heartfelt letter reflecting this. “There were times when I had to say a lot less than I would have like to, and others where I responded with long monologues,” he said. “There were the answers laced with frustration, the ones that were — much to your annoyance — non committal, and then the press conferences that ended in a hurry.
“But through it all, I’d like to believe that I was always honest with you. And that I always chose to have a conversation, even if it risked making headlines for reasons beyond those that I would have liked. Thank you for the love and adulation and thank you for the times when you have been honest in your assessment. Yours isn’t an easy job, but a really important one.”
In mid-2021, when tennis star Naomi Osaka opted out of press conferences at the French Open citing the effects of those interactions on her mental health, many commentators were quick to side with the four-time Major champion and label these exchanges as pointless.
Lost in the din was the fact that a media briefing was the last of the democratic spaces where every reporter, big or small, had an equal right to pose a question. Chhetri, through the years, ensured that it remained that way. He answered every question with utmost sincerity, and treated all those assembled with dignity.
Chhetri was not a wordsmith, à la Leander Paes, the Amritraj brothers — Anand and Vijay — and Viswanathan Anand. But when he spoke, he did with emotions. In contrast to the modern-day habit of loading sentences with generic corporate jargon, he dealt in specifics.
This time last year, during the SAFF Championship in Bengaluru, Chhetri was asked when he would be retiring from football. He replied that he would when he is “not able to sprint with Udanta [Singh] or go for headers with Sandesh [Jhingan] or score against Gurpreet [Singh Sandhu].”
The last few years have been tough for his club BFC, the ISL final appearance in March 2023 notwithstanding. But Chhetri has played a leading role in trying to keep his side’s chin up. On each of the last two occasions a new coach has been unveiled at BFC following an unsuccessful period, Chhetri has been by his manager’s side, putting a comforting arm around, acting as a cushion and helping set a positive narrative.
To many, it may all have seemed like an elaborate show. But what is sometimes lost is that the player is essentially speaking to the fans through us in the media. Chhetri’s smartness lay in the fact that he managed to keep two fickle constituencies happy — the fans and the press — while helping maintain the sanctity of the athlete-journalist relationship.
