Credit: Twitter
Coach Igor Stimac is not likely to accompany the Indian football team to the Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou next week, where India is forced to send their second-string team. After a long drawn-out dispute between the AIFF and the ISL clubs, the clubs have refused to send their players to the Asian games so far.
India take on hosts China at the Games on September 19, and the new season of the ISL kicks off on September 21. Under the rules for the Asian Games, each participating country has to field an under-23 squad along with three players over 23. The country’s highest goal-scorer Sunil Chhetri, defender Sandesh Jhinghan, and goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu were named as the three seniors in the squad.
Also read: Asian Games 2023 - Dates, Venue, Schedule, List of Indian Athletes, Live Streaming, and More
Coach Stimac is adamant that the roster must include the best players, and now it is unlikely to go for the Asian Games. This development came on the same day when reports emerged that Igor Stimac chose the team for the Asian Cup qualifiers last year on the advice of an astrologer, for which AIFF paid “around Rs 12–15 lakh” for his “professional services.”Kushal Das, the then secretary-general of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), revealed this information.
As per the details revealed in the report from The Indian Express, the coach dropped a message to the astrologer, asking him to “check charts for each player from the list for 11 June.”Stimac had communicated the same to the astrologer two days before the match against Afghanistan, which India won 2-1.
