Kolkata, September 12
Former India captain Bhaichung Bhutia has stressed that newly-appointed national team head coach Khalid Jamil will need to focus on consistency and attacking football if India is to make strides at the continental and global stage.
Jamil recently guided India to a third-place finish in the CAFA Nations Cup, where they defeated higher-ranked Oman 1(3)-1(2) on penalties to claim a historic bronze medal.
Speaking on Jamil's appointment, Bhutia told ANI, "I think Khalid will have to begin with consistency and with new players and good strikers from U-23 because he has to build for the future."
"I think the main focus has to be qualifying for the World Cup and performance in the Asia Cup. These are the two most important. If you really want to reach that World Cup standard, I think we will have to play good quality, attacking football to make sure that we qualify on those merits. Only defending or depending on dead ball is not going to take us far," he added.
India's FIFA ranking has recently slumped to 133, Bhutia called "a disaster in terms of performance." He pointed out that poor relations between the federation and coaches had played a big role in the decline.
"You can't completely blame the administration for performance, it's also the performance on the field. But I think that in the last 3 years, what has really happened is that two of the best coaches in the world, Igor Stimac, under a bad situation, had bad relations with the federation... He left. After that, we brought in one of the most successful coaches from FC Goa, he left within 4-5 months. When two of the best coaches in the world could not work with the Federation, it shows how the Federation has been functioning. So, Khalid is coming now. Hope he gets it," Bhutia explained.
The All India Football Federation (AIFF) could also face a ban, with FIFA and AFC setting an October 30 deadline to ratify its constitution. Bhutia has criticised the delay.
"FIFA already knew that AIFF doesn't have a constitution for the past 3 years. I have been raising this issue to have a constitution in the last 3 years and I have been personally putting up a case in Supreme Court fighting to have a constitution. So, why has FIFA written so late? If FIFA is serious about taking Indian football forward, they should have written the letter 3 years ago. In that case, constitution could have been prepared and elections could have been held soon. So that the damage to Indian football in 3 years, especially in terms of administration, would not have happened," Bhutia said.
He added that reforms were urgently needed to give Indian football a fresh start.
"I hope the constitution gets formed soon and hopefully we will have a new election, new body that will start football from scratch," he added.
- ANI
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