Five things India needs to do to play in the FIFA World Cup

Long-term plan

AIFF needs to have a concrete long-term plan

Every four years football fans in India ponder as to why their country doesn’t feature in the FIFA World Cup. That reasons behind it are debated and dissected from every angle possible with the mainstream media, which usually ignores Indian football, often setting the next World Cup as a target. Russia are the next hosts in 2018 but the truth is India are nowhere near playing in it. What the Indian football fraternity needs is a long-term plan and work on all the four points mentioned earlier in this piece. India can follow the example of Japan who launched the J-League in 1992 with a 100-year vision of having 100 professional clubs and winning the World Cup by 2092. Thus India doesn’t need to target a specific edition for qualifying and instead should focus on improving the basics of the game both and off the pitch.

Expanding the youth development and coaching education programs, commercialising the domestic game, regularly playing in the Asian Cup and improving the infrastructure should be the targets. Short-term results may not be great but if the AIFF, state associations and clubs work together in meeting a long-term vision then positive things could happen in Indian football. The AIFF also has to work closely with the government and FIFA and AFC are always willing to help as they want India to improve. It is challenging as it’s not easy bringing everything together under one program because of the diversity and enormous population of the country but there is no shortcut to success. We may not even play in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar but with a proper long-term plan and the correct implementation, who knows in 2064 we could be hearing the Indian national anthem in the FIFA World Cup.