EFLI cheerleader video

Once again I've scooped those bungling slackers at ESPN by locating what might be the first video of Elite Football League of India (EFLI) cheerleaders in action. Nice looking group of cheer girls, although I'm sure the Chennai Swarm cheerleaders are prettier and more charming. 

The video is from a June 2nd exhibition match between Hyderabad Skykings (or Skyqueens as us Swarm fans call them) and the Bangalore Warhawks.

Apparently EFLI is playing a number of exhibition games before a series of preseason games starting in July. I think the regular season still kicks of in November. However, that is all conjecture on my part based on some rather confusing information I've read here and there (see My EFLI schedule confusion returns for details).

I found out about the June 2nd game from somebody who emailed me and said they were there. What he said about the game was interesting, and I'm hoping to get more details from him I can pass on in a future post.

There are a lot of shots of the cheerleaders in the short clip mixed in with some game play. The views of the stands were interesting because it seemed like they had a fair sized crowd for the game. There were even some female fans shown who had face paint on like you'll see on some American fans. That said, the majority of the fans were men. It was hard to tell from the clip if the male fans were hooting and cheering the play on the field or the cheerleaders. Probably both from the looks of it.

And as always...

Goooo Swarm Go!!!

     

EFLI - cheerleader news and scrimmage pictures

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For those that don't know, EFLI stands for the Elite Football of India, a league that will play American style football with teams so far in India and Sri Lanka, and plans to add a team from Bangladesh in the near future.

In my first post on the EFLI I jokingly mentioned cheerleading at the very end, and got a comment from Adil of the EFLI about the remark (I did email him, but never heard back). Recently I noticed that they've added an EFLI Cheerleaders Facebook page. There's no real information on it yet, just a comment that women interested in being an EFLI cheerleader should leave a comment and watch the page for updates.

It seems like they should be able to find some young ladies who would give it a try for some travel and adventure, but their approach is far too dodgy looking at the moment. They really should put more details out so it doesn't look so fly-by-night. 

As I pointed out in my follow-up post The current state of Indian cheerleading, cheerleading in India has a bit of a checkered history. Cheerleading was first brought the the Indian Premier League cricket fans by bringing in the Washington Redskins cheerleaders for an exhibition. Then many teams formed their own squads.

While cheerleading was well received by the male fans, in some cases perhaps too enthusiastically well received, among conservative members of Indian society it was frowned upon. The above pictures are of two squads that performed at the same match, the top dressed in the more risque American style, while the bottom squad has been adjusted for more conservative Indian tastes. As the LA Times article, In India, 'cheer queens' opt for saris, explains:  

Can sari-clad "cheer queens" stand up to short-skirted pom-pom girls?

That's a question Indian cricket fans are pondering after a team here introduced a cheerleading squad wrapped head to toe in traditional garb, its members eschewing high kicks and splits for complex hand waves and traditional dance steps.

"The concept of cheer queens is an extraordinary way of showcasing our national artistic heritage to the world," says Abhijit Sarkar, director of the Pune Warriors.

Others say it's a nice idea, done somewhere else.

"If you want fine arts, go to a hall," said cricket columnist Ayaz Memon.

Cheerleading arrived in India three years ago with the inception of a shorter, more TV-friendly form of cricket, a three-hour version of a game that, in its purest form, lasts five days with breaks for tea.

To attract audiences to the glitzy new Indian Premier League, organizers drew on an age-old principle — sex sells — and introduced U.S.-style cheerleaders in bikinis, miniskirts and high boots.

Many male fans welcomed the idea. But right-wing, religious and feminist groups quickly condemned it as "vulgar," "walking porn" and "frivolous eye candy" in a nation where, Kama Sutra aside, sensuality is not frequently discussed or displayed in public.

The fact that at least half the cheerleaders were foreigners, including several members of the Washington Redskins cheerleading squad with short skirts and what the Hindustan Times described as "teeny-weeny blouses," only fueled the kerfuffle.

They're "worse than bar dancers," complained Maharashtra state minister Siddharam Mhetre. "Mothers and daughters watch these matches and it does not look nice."

In other EFLI news they've released pictures from one of their scrimmages in full pads and with contact. They're looking good. You can more pictures after the jump.

Ooof. Nice hit on the ball carrier, but the defender should use his arms to wrap up the tackle.

The current state of Indian cheerleading

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While writing about the new Elite Football League of India (EFLI) I ended the post with a toss-off line about being willing to act as a cheerleader consultant for the new league if they needed one. This got me wondering -- what is the state of Indian cheerleading these days?

Let it never be said that, as a dedicated internet journalist, once presented a lead I won't follow it to the ends of the Earth. Or, failing that, at least do a couple of Google searches and slap together a post in which I pawn myself off as an expert on the subject matter. 

It turns out that Indian cricket teams have recently added cheerleading squads, and with the cheer girls have come quite a bit of controversy.

This all started in 2008 when the wealthy and flamboyant  new owner of the Bangalore Royal Challengers imported the Washington Redskins cheerleading squad to be featured at the opening match of the Indian Premier League season. They were well received -- at least by the male fans -- and plans were to have locals audition for cheeleader slots for the teams.

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However, while looking at the pictures you may notice that the cheerleaders are rather blonde and white-skinned and don't seem to be ethnic Indians at all. 

That's because the consensus of opinion is that the cheer girls are tramps, they apparently hold the social status of bar girls, and that the local girls are to modest try out for the squads? 

Wait... aren't Indian bar girls, Indians?

Regardless of the answer to that question, Indian cheerleader squads are composed of Western girls from the U.S., Australia and South Africa. As you can see, their costumes are also rather less revealing than American cheerleading uniforms. 

Still, in spite of their popularity with that fans and steps taken to tone down their costumes, tut-tutting cricket purists object to them sullying the sport. Even more adamantly opposed to the cheerleading squads are conservative religious groups in India. As Kanishk Tharoor of the Guardian reports:

From the inception of the IPL, much of the opposition to cheerleading has come from conservative religious groups, who staged heated demonstrations in 2008 when the dancers first took to the IPL stage. Even this year, a rightwing group in the coastal state of Orissa demanded that matches staged there should eschew cheerleaders altogether. While this species of angry conservative austerity may be getting noisier in India, its prudishness is familiar to us all. Social conservatism the world over shares a strange mix of sanctimony and prurience, the mingled terror of and obsession with the flesh.

You'll have to forgive him for getting carried away in his last sentence -- he is a writer for the Guardian after all.

Gabriella Pasqualotto

The controversy only intensified in May of this year when the South African Gabriella Pasqualotto, a cheerleader for the Mumbai Indians, got tossed off the squad when it was discovered she was the writer of the The Secret Diary of an IPL Cheerleader. 

In it she writes about late night parties with players and gossips about the cheer girls and players. Here is sample of the scandalous goings-on she talked about:

By the end of a crazy evening, a certain someone had played kissing catchers with three girls known to me only, although he has his own girlfriend back home. He cooed to each girl, “Come home with me, I just want to cuddle!"

Kissing catchers, cooing and cuddling? I wonder what they make of Linday Lohan? At any rate, you need not worry about Gabriella, she's parlayed her problems into a series of appearances and recently landed a role in a major Bollywood film.