Margao, May 2 :     The Maldives is made up of 1,200 islands, of which only 200 are inhabited. Among them too, only 11 have a population of 2,000 or more. The rest have as low as 200 residents. The largest island is Fuvmula which is 5 km across, and Male the capital of the islands, is about 2.5 km across. In a population of just about 2,70,000 there are no less than 1,920 registered soccer players in 80 recognised teams from all divisions. Thirty-five of these teams play in Male. The main island boasts a six-team premier division and Victory Sports Club are the current champions, while Valencia are the runners-up. Three players from each of these teams were in the Maldivian national side that finished third in the just-concluded SAFF Coca-Cola Cup here. All those bits of statistics really do boggle the mind. The fact is that even where the resources are meagre (even human resources ? the nation has no unemployed. In fact they have a shortage of manpower) and space is at a premium, the nation is crazy about soccer. There is only one stadium, in the island of Male, which has a capacity of about 12,000 and Maldivians had to reclaim land to build seven practice soccer fields. On match days the stands are always full despite the Maldivians keeping themselves busy with work throughout the week. Mr Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, former secretary of the Football Association of the Maldives (FAM) and new deputy director at the country?s ministry of youth and sports says that popularity and standard of soccer in the country is on the rise. The fact that they were runners-up last year and third this year does not really tell the whole story. Football is also played in other islands now, he said. This SAFF Cup selection also had players from the islands of Hura and Adu. Today Male has 20 second division teams and the third division is open. The first time the Maldivians played an international was in 1979 when they took part in the Indian Ocean Island Games in Reunion. But thereafter there was a slump in footballing activity. The FAM itself was established in 1982. That was about the time the Fifa accepted the Maldives into its fold. Why this big gap? ?That was the time we were building up our infrastructure,? says Hamid. The stadium came up, the leagues were established and we played our next international in 1984, the SAF Games in Kathmandu.? They have played in all the SAF Games thereafter. In the Colombo Games in 1991 they entered the final. The seat of soccer remains the capital Male where the six first division teams involve approximately 144 players. That is not surprising, because 33 per cent of the population of the Maldives live in Male. Even from this sardine pack-like existence, the Maldivians have played the Asian Club Cup, World Cup qualifiers and under-16 and under-19 meets regularly. The Maldivian economy depends on tourism and fishing. Agriculture is not very popular because the soil is not particularly suitable to grow even their staple food, rice. They import their rice. However, as the story goes, the Maldivians are descendants from a ship-full of marooned Sri Lankans over 2,000 years ago. Hence the rice habit. But tourism is a big earner. The islands of 2,70,000 accommodates more than 3,50,000 tourists each year, and the figure is growing. That keeps the Maldivian currency steady at around 11.8 rupiah to the dollar. However, following the end of a brief Portuguese occupation (gone from Goa) is the 16th century, the Maldives turned to Islam and now the country is 100 per cent Islamic. Thus the tourists are generally kept at arm?s length. ?Some of the islands are no bigger than this stadium (the Nehru Stadium, Fatorda), and private hotels are run on them,? Hamid said.? The tourists do not need to interact much with the general population of the Maldives. Privatisation is also the norm for the clubs. All the first division clubs are private, but the government gives incentive. Each club is given a government grant of $1,500 per month for coaches. Consequently, most first division clubs have foreign coaches. The majority are Europeans ? Germans, Hungarians, and even Russians, Uzbeks and Slavs. The government also gives interest-free loan of upto $25,000 to clubs at the start of each season for development. this is then adjusted from the gates. The clubs generally get to keep a good portion of the gates. The players make a decent living as well. Ten per cent of the players are professionals. there are semi-pros as well. A top pro could earn upto $1,000 per month. The normal rates, of course, are $200-300 per month. That is not bad, when compared to the average earning of $200 per month for others. Development is on now. The government is funding 13 disciplines, but football remains way ahead in popularity.