Narendra Modi invokes football spirit to highlight India-France bond

PARIS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday invoked the spirit of the football game to underline the close bond between India and France. During his address to the Indian community at the UNESCO headquarters here, Modi used several football terminologies to highlight the ties in various spheres between the two nations.
Modi said both India and France worked together positively under different circumstances.
Hailing the friendship shared between the two nations, Modi said any achievement made by either France or India evokes good reactions from the people of either country and cited the example of how Indian fans were excited and happy to see France lift the football World Cup in 2018.
"France and India are very closely related. When France won the World Cup, football fans in India were excited and happy for France's victory. In fact, I think the number of football fans for France is more in India than in France itself," Modi said amidst a thunderous applause.
The prime minister also used a football analogy to underline the action being taken by his government for good governance.
"In the last five years, we have red carded a number of bad practices from the country," he said.
"I have come to a nation of football lovers, you very well know the importance of a goal, that is the ultimate achievement. In last five years we set goals, which were earlier considered impossible to fulfil. But our team spirit have made it possible to achieve those goals," he said.
Modi said in new India, the way in which action is being taken against corruption, nepotism, loot of people's money and terrorism, this has never happened before.