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Earlier this month, it was announced that the Indian national team head coach Manolo Marquez had departed from his role. The AIFF published the applications for the new managers on their media handles and claimed that it received up to 170 applications for the job. The Indian football fans were over the moon as earlier this week the Indian and Spanish media stated that the Technical Director of AIFF, Subrata Paul, revealed the interest of the Spanish legend Xavi Hernandez to take over as the head coach of India.
Another name on the list of applications was the veteran Pep Guardiola. Following that, several reports suggested that the AIFF had rejected the bid of Xavi Hernandez, due to the salary of the Spanish legend being too high. All of these reports have now been bashed by the AIFF, confirming them to be false. They claimed that they had received forged or fake applications and could not determine the authenticity of the applications.
The email applications of Xavi and Guardiola were not genuine, says AIFF
AIFF statement on the matter read, "AIFF received an email furnishing the applications from Spanish coaches Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernandez. The authenticity of their applications could not be confirmed, and it has since emerged that the email applications were not genuine.” The renowned Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano also shared on his social media handles that there have been no talks whatsoever between the AIFF and Xavi Hernandez.
Fans are left completely baffled and worried about the future of Indian football as they don't believe that it is on the right track. They also believe that the people governing the sport have to take some rigid actions to promote the development of football in India. According to the latest reports, Khalid Jamil is the leading candidate to fill in the vacancy of the head coach in the Indian football team. It will be interesting to see what changes he can bring to the team upon his expected appointment.
