BA football has taken a mile-high approach, something truly unprecedented in its history.
Never before has the district embraced the media with such intent.
History will remember this shift.
In the early years, Ba operated quietly.
There was minimal media presence and little insight into the business side of the game.
It was a culture of keeping things close to the chest.
Run it by someone who followed the district and hear it out as it is.
But that was then.
Dayal era
Fast forward to the era of Praneel Dayal, and the landscape has changed.
Social media is now part of the game, more publicity, more engagement, and yes, more noise.
The taunts are louder, the spotlight brighter, and those “free rides” to games now feel like part of the norm.
Ba hasn’t just evolved, it has stepped into a more open, more visible era of football.
Yet while passion in the stands can fuel performance on the field, Ba remains some distance away from being a runaway force defined by style, guile, and discipline.
The raucous backdrop may strike a chord and the players may give their all, there is still a lack of the flawless football the team was once notoriously known for.
Football, as many of the game’s leading minds insist, is no sideshow.
As Alex Ferguson reflects in My Biography:
“Football is best when it is left to footballers, who must always remain focused, anything else is entertainment.”
The message is clear that football remains, at its core, a team game.
As Ferguson and other great managers have long maintained, the same lesson applies everywhere from the biggest clubs to teams in Fiji, and especially to Ba.
The beautiful game is played, won, or lost on the field, not on hope, hype, or star power alone.
For now, it remains the Dayal show.
How long that continues is his prerogative.
It is his moment in time and he is living it, when it passes, history will ultimately define his tenure.
