Veteran footballers and coaches, upset by India’s loss to Afghanistan in the final of the South Asian Federation Football finals on Wednesday, have demanded the en mass resignation of the office bearers of the All India Football Federation, the game’s governing body.
The standard of football in the country has gone down over the last thirty years. India, twice gold medal winners of the Asian Games in 1951 and 1962 are nowhere near the first top 12 countries in Asia,” C N Moorthy (71), former player and coach of Chennai’s Harrington Football Accademy, told The Pioneer.
Moorthy pointed out that none of the office-bearers of the AIFF including president Praful Patel has kicked a football in their life time. “Only a player who has tasted victories and defeats in the field could emerge as an administrator and coach. Though we had brilliant players in the sixties and seventies, of late there is not a single player in the country who meet international stature,” he said.
Indian bagged the gold medals in the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games. “That was the last time the India football stood with their head high on the victory podium. There was no foreign coach or technical directors. Indian team was known all over Asia for their skills. It was a visual treat watching the Indian team play . They played clean and sweet football,” reminiscences R Shanmugam (71) former Indian player with a lot of international; experience.
He pointed out players like P K Banerjee, Jarnail Singh, Inder Singh, Magan Singh, Subhash Bhowmick, Shyam Thappa, Gowtham Sarcar who did India proud. “We had a coach by name S A Raheem, a truly home grown coach. Raheem saheb’s tenure (1950-62) was the golden era of football in the country,” said Shanmugham, who represented India and the ICF for nearly two decades.
India, the former Asian Games winners as well as semi-finalists of the Melbourne Olympics, are no more invited to the Merdeka Cup football tournament in Malaysia. “In the 60s, India was the cynosure of all eyes in Kula lumpur because of the clean and smooth game dished out by the team. We were known for our skills and dribbling. Inder Singh was nick named Bullet Train because of his speed and ball control,” said Shanmugham.
The SAF football championship featuring India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka , Pakistan, Bhurtan, Nepal and Maldives is not taken seriously either by FIFA (the world governing council of football) or the Asian Football Confederation, pointed out A N Raveendra Das, leading football writer commentator. “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed is the King:” was how Das described the SAF football championship.
He described the SAF football championship as an event held by the Indians, for the Indians and of the Indians to celebrate football in India. “A team representing a population of 1.3 billion playing against neighboring countries, most of them smaller than some of the metros in India, do not make sense at all. And when some of these teams pull up surprises by beating India in all areas of the game, the bosses of the All India Football Federation should have the decency to quit their posts,” said Das.