AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

[Atithee]

You can’t be serious! Did you notice that we just lost 0-3 to Vietnam and drew with Singapore?

[jayakris]

i really thought by this wold cup and 2022 in general india would have more players in major leagues especially the premier league because of how many indians in england training with major clubs. also the national team has not developed at all. idk when they will reach a world cup. should not take this long given the talent pool.

The root cause has not been tackled. India does not have football fields for kids to play. They have all been taken over by the stupid game that kids in most countries do not play.

I have stuck to that reasoning for a long time. I am only more and more convinced of that being why Indians are so bad at this game where there is really no good reason why Indians can't do well. With 1.4 billion people, we should be doing a lot better but kids don't play the damn game. They go find three sticks and waste time with it.

[arjun2761]

I don't think the lack of space is the primary cause of our football ineptness although it is likely a factor. Primarily, India has a very poor sports culture (in terms of both participation and rigorous training in the more physically demanding sports) and we perform relatively poorly in all sports relative to our size (even if you consider India as a 100 MM population country with respect to potential sports participation).

We do better in less competitive sports (cricket being an example). Football is by far the most competitive sport in the world, so the fact that we are poor there isn't a surprise. If all our talent went to cricket and we were a strong sports culture country, we would dominate cricket a lot more than we do.

[jayakris]

I don't think the lack of space is the primary cause of our football ineptness although it is likely a factor. Primarily, India has a very poor sports culture (in terms of both participation and rigorous training in the more physically demanding sports) and we perform relatively poorly in all sports relative to our size (even if you consider India as a 100 MM population country with respect to potential sports participation).

True, but India is typically in the top-25 to top-75 in the world in other world sports, but we have never breached even top-90 for the last 4+ decades. And, in my opinion, football is a sport that does not require some of the genetic traits that are not Indians' strengths (in comparison to sports like basketball, volleyball, tennis, swimming, running, etc, and even badminton). Certain superb skills that make people go "ooh, ah" is often something that comes out of large populations, like Ramesh Kishnan's hand skills, Chandrasekhar's googlies or Aditi Ashok's putting. Even that has not occurred in football from India. We have hardly produced such players with super skills in football. That is because the true population that plays football in India is very small. The only reason for why enough kids just don't play it, is very simple. They don't see it being played around them. Ask any boy under age 10 around the world what game they will like to play with kids around if they see it being played. Football (except in the Indian subcontinent - as they only hear of cricket). Nothing to learn in football. Just join whoever is kicking a ball around and just play. That is why it is the "beautiful game". Not in India. Nobody is kicking a ball around for others to join. If there is even a 40 feet by 20 feet area near a kids houise, they only see cricket being played there.

Actually we are probably like a poor 100M (maybe 50M) country in other sports. In many other sports like tennis, badminton etc, the kids try cricket first and then come back by age 11 or 12. That happens from football to other sports in other countries too. But in India it happens from cricket. Too late by age 12 to get good at football. In my opinion, when it comes to football, we are not even a 25M country. The number of u12 kids who play football is that few.

Old discussion, anyway. I am just saying that I have not changed my view for a couple of decades on this. And we have not improved one bit in that period, when our domestic league etc did improve quite a bit and we have brought in some good coaches and all that. General sporting culture has also been improving in two years, as our Olympics and other record show. We are still not producing players for football.

[jayakris]

The problems never end. I thought the Supreme Court intervening and getting rid of Praful Patel's previous administration, putting in a temporary committee of administrators, then the elections and new bylaws and a new administration would all lead to ending the split.

I should have known that more disputes and noises were on the way when Kalyan Chaubey got elected over Bhaichung Bhutia.

Now Bhutia accuses the president Chaubey and General Secretary Shaji Prabhakaran of "something fishy" (which I admit, I also felt) when they pulled out of the bid to host the 2027 Asian Cup, and said that our Santosh Trophy final will be done abroad in Saudi Arabia - which all happened in lightning time right after the new guys took over. Santosh Trophy's move to Saudi Arabia should be investigated: Bhutia (Hindustan Times)

“I would want AFC (Asian Football Confederation), FIFA and the government of India’s sports ministry to investigate…There is something fishy about it,” the former India captain said ... “Who’s winning the bid (for the 2027 Asian Cup)? Saudi Arabia. How come Shaji and Kalyan pulled out of the bid without consulting the executive committee? And now the Santosh Trophy is being hosted by Saudi Arabia. This has to be investigated,” said Bhutia, speaking from his home in Gangtok.

Here we go again! It seems Shaji said that it could not be discussed due to "lack of time" in the exec committee meeting but was then discussed in emails. That sounds even more fishy. Something as important as pulling out of hosting Asian Cup and conducting Santosh Trophy finals abroad was not discussed due to lack of time in the meeting? Give me a friggin break!

[jayakris]

Meanwhile, the account from where AIFF was streaming the Santosh Trophy matches got hacked during a match and then got suspended.

Kalyan Chaubey, AIFF President Blames ‘Conspiracy’ As Indian Football YouTube Account Gets Hacked and Suspended (LatestLY)

... and guess who Shaji Prabhakaran wants to get involved?

AIFF’s Shaji Prabhakaran requests Elon Musk to intervene after I-League Twitter account gets blocked for ‘suspicious activity’ (Indian Express)

Are you kidding me, sir?

[Sidenote: Sunando Dhar is leaving and has been replaced, but only informally, by Anil Kamath as Deputy Gen.Sec last week - AIFF: Sunando relieved, Anil gets bigger role - Times of India. I smell more fish]

[Rajiv]

Didn't know where to post this bit of news.. about our celebrated coach of yester years, whom the bugs keeping in line with their motto and mantra of copying India in each and every field, have roped in Stephen Constantine.

Don't know how are they going to find the money to pay his salary on time and how long will he last.

https://www.nation.com.pk/30-Sep-2023/p ... ional-team

[jayakris]

Constantine is a very good coach. Great for Pakistan to do this, but I have no idea why Constantine wants to go to the bug swamp and waste time!

[PKBasu]

I presume the shenanigans at the Asiad have been discussed in one of the Asiad threads. But it was absolutely disgraceful that just 13 players had arrived for the first match against China -- and even they got there around midnight, just a few hours before the start of the match against hosts China. Why do we bother to send a side to the Asiad if a proper, well-prepared squad cannot be sent at least 3 days before the start of the competition??

[Atithee]

We weren’t going to send a time at all. It was a last minute maneuvering that even allowed the team to participate. Not that it was the right decision to keep them out originally due to ranking criteria adopted.

[jayakris]

Yeah this was botched up by everybody. Initially not selected. Then Stimac somehow managed to convince the ministry that it was worth sending them. But then the clubs refused to release the three over-23 players. Then a couple of them got released, I think. The u23 asian championships came in the way too (but others also had that issue). Our planning got all messed up and everybody together botched it all up. Learning experience. Next time we will plan better, I hope.

[jayakris]

These political issues will never go away from Indian sports federations... Shaji Prabhakaran has suddenly been sacked as the General Secretary of AIFF today, with the reason of a "breach of trust". No details on what the issue was.

Bhaichung Bhutia who had lost the election last year to Kalyan Chaubay as the president of AIFF says that Shaji is being made a scapegoat and that everybody else at the top in AIFF are the problem (Shaji was not on Bhaichung's side in the elections)... Take it all for whatever it is worth.

Meanwhile Kalyan also announced today that Santhosh Trophy will now be called the "FIFA santhosh trophy"... I have no idea how that can be - but apparently the FIFA president has agreed to come for the next Santosh Trophy final... That sends my mind thinking in the direction of whatever happened to the Santosh Trophy being held in Riyadh. I thought that it was Shaji's brainchild (but I am not sure) - and that the MOU was to hold the final for a few years in S.Arabia. But only one edition was done there - in March this year. Now that it is coming back to India, I wonder if there is some Saudi connection in all this, as money angles are always involved in anything that the Saudis get into. All pure speculation from me.

Anyway, things stink again from an Indian sports federation office. So what is new?

[prasen9]

The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the All India Football Federation's (AIFF) decision to sack Shaji Prabhakaran from the general secretary post. (Football News)

Shaji Prabhakaran News

BTW, we have two AIFF threads. Can a kind moderator please merge them?

[Done! Merged the threads... Mod, Jay]