Indian village tournament crowns champions with goats, not trophies

In the forests and hills of eastern Jharkhand, where a remote tribal district has only recently emerged from decades of armed conflict, a football tournament unfolded last week that looked nothing like the professional matches dominating global headlines. The Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament, held from July 14 to 17 in a village called Tirilbasa within Chaibasa district, drew teams from 64 surrounding villages. But the prizes waiting for the champions were not trophies or medals. They were goats.

NCS Maudi won the final 1-0 against Kumbaram, claiming 15,000 rupees—about $156—and three castrated male goats known locally as khassis. The runners-up took home 12,000 rupees and two khassis. Third and fourth place teams each received 9,000 rupees and one khassi. The winning captain, Sachin Devam, arrived at the match on a two-wheeler and faced a practical problem: he would need to rent an autorickshaw to haul his three goats the ten kilometers back to his village. "It's the first win for our team, and we are going to celebrate it with everyone in the village," he told Al Jazeera. "It's going to be a khassi picnic."

The tournament, now in its fifth year, sits at the intersection of two worlds. Organisers follow FIFA rulebooks and employ state-certified referees to maintain order and prevent player aggression. But everything else has been reshaped to honor the traditions of the Ho people, an Austroasiatic tribal community native to the Kolhan region of Jharkhand. The Ho number just over a million across India and have their own governance system, the Munda-Manki, in which hereditary village heads uphold social and legal customs that often supersede India's formal administrative structures. For the Ho, no celebration is complete without khassi meat. The animals feature in religious ceremonies and rituals, their meat shared communally. "Without khassi, our celebrations are half-hearted," said Raj Keshri, the goalkeeper for Tirilbasa's team and a tournament organizer. "At weddings, even if the hosts serve double the amount of chicken and no khassi meat, it will upset the villagers."

The tournament's rules reflect this commitment to community over individual achievement. Teams must have nine players, not eleven, with at least six from the same village. There is no offside. Players can score from anywhere on the field. These modifications exist to level the playing ground for young athletes from small villages who would never qualify in open tournaments dominated by seasoned professionals. "This kind of match setup provides an opportunity for players like us from small villages who never get a chance to qualify in open tournaments," said Sudarshan Tiu, who plays for Galubasa FC. The tournament name itself—Rangila Star Tirilbasa, where "rangila" means colorful in Hindi—was chosen to signal the village's identity: colorful in its enthusiasm to do something unique, and star in its commitment to nurturing local talent.

Chaibasa's emergence as a football hub is itself a recent phenomenon. Until 2011, the district was cut off from mainland India, gripped by a Maoist insurgency rooted in tribal resistance to large-scale forest clearing and land sales to mining corporations. Private vehicles avoided the roads at night. Commercial buses ran only from 4am to 4pm. The region remained on the government's list of sensitive areas until last year. In March 2026, India's Home Minister declared the armed rebellion effectively over after key commanders were killed or arrested. As violence receded, Chaibasa transformed. Pizza shops and laptop stores appeared alongside mining company offices. Schools and colleges opened. And football took root.

The sport has already produced notable players. Malati Munda, a female midfielder and forward, found national recognition through local tournaments, eventually playing in league matches in Kolkata and now serving with the Home Guard paramilitary in Ranchi, Jharkhand's capital—a common pathway for players from poorer families seeking government employment. Harish Hembram started as a local match videographer and now runs a YouTube channel with over 211,000 subscribers, livestreaming key tournaments across the state and earning about 20,000 rupees monthly from the platform alone. He has since opened a sports shop in Ranchi where players from Chaibasa buy equipment.

This grassroots football culture challenges the global perception that India is not a football nation. Sandeep Menon, author of "Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People's Football in India," has documented a football subculture across the country that operates largely invisible to international attention. "At the grassroots level, football is played with great interest across the country," Menon told Al Jazeera. "And everyone has their own version of the game, to make it palatable and adaptable depending upon the availability of space, local geographical surroundings, weather and social conditions." Hyper-local tournaments like Rangila Star attract young players and offer them pathways to overnight recognition. "There is a high emotional investment in playing for a village and representing it," Menon said. "For some players, football becomes their identity and pride." In Tirilbasa, where the monsoon season brings agricultural workers home and the tournament unfolds amid food stalls, fermented rice beer, and rooster-catching games where spectators place bets, that pride is measured not in silverware but in the weight of three goats heading home in the back of a rented vehicle.