We don’t have luxury of money or government’s unstinted support, says Praful Patel
AIFF President Praful Patel has stated that the Indian football doesn’t have the luxury of money and government’s unstinted support that has stopped them from following successful blueprints of other footballing countries. Patel also shed light on the baby and mini-league at the grass root level.
Football hasn’t been a new discovery and throughout the decades, numerous clubs and nations have experimented with things thereby bringing in strategies and philosophies that have take few of them to glory. Hence, the developing nations are always expected to follow the same to get stability and AIFF President Patel was asked the same in a recent interview.
The football head, who has been in the centre of a lot of controversy concerning the tumultuous conditions of the I-League and ISL, explained how lack of financial help has stopped the federation from going after the successful nations’ footsteps.
When asked why India couldn’t mirror the uniform playing style of Germany in 200os, Patel said, “The AIFF is working on a larger uniform platform. Whatever discrepancies are there, we will sort them out. I am not ruling out anything on style; this is best left to the technical people. Unlike Germany or any other country, India is too vast and too diverse.
“At the AIFF, we are struggling for money. We don’t have the luxury of money. We don’t have the complete unstinted support of the government. We as a federation need to work within our limitations. Ultimately, states – be it in Germany – have a larger role to play. Here, barring a few states, I don’t see any aggressive support for the sport,” he added, reported Sportstar.
Patel kept diverting the questions to the development of India’s football at the grass-root level and decided to delve deeper into the subject.
“We had Robb Bann; he was a very seasoned technical director and gave us the Vision 2020 document, a masterplan which didn’t exist before. We did well to implement most of it. World Cup Under-17 was part of it. We have now established baby leagues and many age-group tournaments. All that will pay dividends in the future,” he added.
