Rs 3 lakh is not enough for the Dr T Ao Trophy

Opinion – When Mon lifted the Dr T Ao Trophy for the second year running on October 29 at Ungma in Mokokchung, the moment felt bigger than a district final. It was the silver jubilee edition, played on a new astro turf under floodlights, with all 17 districts of Nagaland in the draw and Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio presenting the trophy. The cheque that went with it was Rs 3 lakh.

That figure has not moved. The official purse in 2025 was also Rs 3 lakh for the champions and Rs 2 lakh for the runners-up, according to reports in Nagaland Post and EastMojo. Mon took home Rs 5 lakh last year only because the Chief Minister added Rs 2 lakh on the spot. This year, with no such top-up reported, the champions received Rs 3 lakh, Tuensang Rs 2 lakh, and losing semi-finalists Peren and Zunheboto Rs 50,000 each.

This is not a complaint against the Nagaland Football Association (NFA), the Mokokchung District Football Association or the Department of Youth Resources and Sports. They have built a tournament the whole state now watches. It is precisely because the Dr T Ao Trophy has become this big that its prize money looks so small.

A tournament that outgrew its prize

The numbers from last year’s edition in Kohima tell the story. The final between Mon and Niuland drew an estimated 28,000 to 30,000 spectators to the Indira Gandhi Stadium, depending on which newspaper you read. Around 1.3 to 1.5 lakh more watched online. A columnist in Eastern Mirror estimated that ticket sales for the final alone brought the organisers about Rs 40 lakh, while the entire prize pool, team and individual awards together, came to roughly Rs 10 lakh.

This year the tournament moved to a new ground in Ungma, with tickets at Rs 50 for group matches and Rs 100 from the quarter-finals. The online audience exploded. On a single YouTube channel, SportsCast India, the live stream of the final between Mon and Tuensang had passed 11.7 lakh views by November 2, four days after the match. A second stream of the same final added 7.4 lakh more, and the semi-final between Zunheboto and Tuensang drew 7.8 lakh. Across the 66 Dr T Ao Trophy videos the channel posted between October 13 and 29, from the opening ceremony to the medal ceremony, the views add up to about 1.18 crore.

Views are not unique viewers, and one person may watch several matches. Even so, it is an audience few sporting events in the Northeast can claim. The crowds, the streams and the Santosh Trophy selection that happens on these pitches have made it the most important football event in the state.

Now divide Rs 3 lakh among a champion squad. A team of 20 players and four support staff gets about Rs 12,500 a head. For three weeks of football at the highest level Nagaland offers, after months of preparation, that is a token, not a reward. The runners-up and semi-finalists end up with far less once their purse is shared.

The numbers do not add up

Set the Dr T Ao Trophy beside other prizes handed out in Nagaland, and the gap is hard to defend. The figures below are the winner’s cash prize as reported by organisers or the press for the most recent edition.

Three things stand out. A single wrestler in Kohima takes home twice what an entire district football squad earns, and a plot of land besides. A band at Ticket to Hornbill wins nearly seven times the Dr T Ao purse. And the NSF Martyrs’ Memorial Trophy, a club tournament played at the same Indira Gandhi Stadium that hosted last year’s Dr T Ao final, pays its winner Rs 5 lakh, more than the state’s official inter-district championship.

None of this is an argument to cut those prizes. Naga wrestling and the Hornbill music contests have built their purses through sponsors, donors and ticket sales, and they show what is possible. It is an argument that football, the game that fills Nagaland’s biggest stadium, has been left behind.

Why the prize matters

Prize money is not about greed. It is a signal. It tells a 19-year-old in Noklak or Peren whether football is a hobby or a path. When the signal is Rs 12,500 for a championship, talented players drift to government exams, to jobs outside the state, or away from the game by the time they turn 25. When a title changes a player’s year, players train harder, districts invest in coaching, and sponsors see a product worth attaching their name to.

The tournament already creates the audience. Gate collections, more than a crore of YouTube views on one channel alone, and a name that reaches Naga communities across India are assets most state tournaments in the country would envy. What is missing is a prize structure that reflects that value and gives players a fair share of what they generate.

I have argued that the champion’s purse should be at least Rs 50 lakh. That would still be a small line in the state’s budget, but for a squad of young players it would be the first proof that football in Nagaland can pay.

An appeal, not an accusation

The organisers deserve credit. The NFA already gives every district association Rs 50,000 towards its arrangements and pays travelling allowance to players and officials. The government built a new turf with floodlights for the silver jubilee. And in 2025 the Chief Minister added Rs 2 lakh to the champions’ purse without being asked. The will to support the game clearly exists.

What is needed now is a decision, not a gesture. Three steps would change the picture within one edition:

1. The Government of Nagaland should create a dedicated prize fund for the Dr T Ao Trophy, starting at Rs 50 lakh for the champions with proportionate awards for the runners-up, semi-finalists and individual winners, and review it every three years.
2. The NFA should open the tournament to title and category sponsors, as the Hornbill Festival organisers and the Naga Wrestling Association already do, so the prize pool grows beyond the state budget.
3. A fixed share of gate and streaming revenue should go straight into the players’ prize pool, so that the crowd in the stands is rewarding the players on the pitch.

Readers have already made the point in their own words. When I raised this in a short video on Instagram, it drew more than 1 lakh views and over 700 comments within hours. “Finally someone said it,” one viewer wrote, a comment more than a hundred others liked. Another wrote: “If the prize money increases the craze for football will increase and moreover players will take sports as full time profession.” One was blunter: “3 lakhs is my pocket money, says my friend!” The same concern has been raised in letters to the editor in Nagaland Post and Eastern Mirror. It is time it was answered.

Imagine the next 25 years

Dr Talimeren Ao captained India at the 1948 London Olympics. The tournament that carries his name has grown into something he would have been proud of: 17 districts, packed stands, a watching diaspora, and a generation of young Nagas who believe football can take them somewhere. A prize of Rs 3 lakh tells those players that the belief is theirs alone. A prize worthy of the tournament would tell them the state believes it too. Also Read Zunheboto fans clean stadium after Dr T Ao Trophy loss

The Dr T Ao Trophy has already done the hard part. It has built the audience, the passion and the name. All it asks now is that the reward catches up with the game.

Aloto Naga is a journalist and the founder of Nagaland.News. The views expressed are personal.