The sooner Kalyan Chaubey leaves AIFF, the better it is for Indian football: Igor Stimac

Four days after he was unceremoniously sacked as the coach of India’s men’s football team, Igor Stimac launched a scathing attack on reigning All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Kalyan Chaubey, saying the sooner he leaves the post, the better it would be for the future of football in the country.

“The sooner Kalyan Chaubey leaves AIFF, the better it is for Indian football,” Stimac said.

The 56-year-old was removed following India’s failure to reach the third round of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers. A day later, the Croat threatened a lawsuit against AIFF in the FIFA Tribunal if his outstanding dues were not cleared in 10 days.

Noting that the Indian football is “imprisoned,” Stimac, who came onboard in March 2019 after the departure of Stephen Constantine, said it will take 20 years for things to change.

“I came with an open heart to Indian football. But your football is imprisoned. It will take a couple of decades for things to improve which I don’t see happening,” he told mediapersons in a virtual press conference.

“Football is the most popular sport in the world, but India is the only place where football is not growing,” he added.

The outspoken coach also trained his guns at AIFF Technical Committee head and India great IM Vijayan, saying he is not fit for the job.

“IM Vijayan was a fantastic player but he is not the person to head the national federation’s technical committee,” he said.

Stimac said there is no clear structure and stability in Indian football thanks to the AIFF.

“My staff was working mostly without any compensation, team manager was working without any sleep, managing multiple teams knowing that we are not going to get enough time for preparation.”

India’s support staff, the former coach said, was not provided with the technology needed to optimise their performance.

“We were working without GPS equipment, without VO camera, which I asked for long back to analyse our training session. I also told them if you have a problem with the budget I would do it, but it was not allowed, and AIFF didn’t do anything about it either.

“We were renting match analysts from Goa. We were, in fact, stealing the platforms from Goa FC, that’s how we were working.”

When the new set of office-bearers took charge of AIFF two years ago, Stimac said he was told that his contract would not be renewed if the team failed to make the quarter-finals of Asian Cup.

“It was clear that these people don’t favour my work, they have a different idea but I wanted to do my work with as much support as possible,” he said.