AIFF's 'great' plans for Indian football

If you are a fan of Indian football fan, you must be aware of the farce that has been going on in the Indian football scene in the name of administration by the AIFF. The most recent one has been the sacking of Bob Houghton as coach. The former Fulham player who has played under the legendary Sir Bobby Charlton has had a history of bringing mediocre teams like China and Uzbekistan to great levels on the international circuit.

It would be interesting to see how the AIFF leads India after Bob Houghton's exit

Bob Houghton was brought to India by the AIFF to strengthen the country’s football scene that has been on the decline since the 70s. During his reign, Houghton did a commendable job by taking India to the Nehru Cup and AFC Challenge Cup Titles and later qualifying for the Asian Cup. Fast forward to 2011 and the AFC Cup wash out, AIFF sends Bob a show cause notice asking him to resign from the position of Indian coach or face racism charges(great way to black mail some one). The bureaucratic footballing geniuses of the country that head the AIFF succeeded at ousting the coach from his position but why did they resort to such insane levels. Here is a look at why I think they did it.

Bob Houghton spoke his mind and was not afraid to say it to the world or to the face of the AIFF officials. They couldn’t do a thing about it because he was a person who had travelled the world and taught and played football in many different countries and knew what he was saying. By taking him down, the AIFF paved the path clear to run things their way after Bob tried to bring about a positive changes by being at loggerheads with the administration.

As everyone knows, the level of infrastructure in India is shocking. Even a university football field in Russia is miles ahead of the best stadia that India has to offer. The grounds that the I-league players play their matches look like paddy fields that have been harvested, the ball doesn’t bounce or roll properly on these grounds (personal experience) and players cannot show their skills and thus resort to the long ball tactics that destroy the flavour of the game.

AIFF had failed to create a single good stadium or decent practice grounds for the National team to train on thus they resort to sending the team to other countries for training. In recent years, countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have grown into good footballing nations and even developed their leagues following the footsteps of Japan and South Korea. One cannot help but admire the level of commitment that these countries have towards football. India, on the other hand, has stagnated and the AFC has had to intervene on several occasions to make sure that footballing in this country goes in the right path. The AIFF is easily overpowered by coaches and management from the I league clubs and has never been able to enforce whatever rules and regulations exist.

With the country’s football lagging behind heavily and the one man who tried to bring about a revolution being taken down, it would be interesting to see how Armando Colaco plays the team and also what kind of coach the AIFF brings to India in the next few months to replace Bob Houghton, particularly because of a comment made by the AIFF about the style of ‘fantasy’ football that they want to see being played.