India football Coach Igor Stimac unlikely to travel for Asian Games, second-string team to go

Coach Igor Stimac is unlikely to accompany the Indian football team to the Asian Games next week, where India could be forced to field a weakened team owing to a clash with the Indian Super League (ISL), the country’s top division competition, The Indian Express has learnt.

India takes on hosts China at the Hangzhou Games in exactly a week, on September 19. The new season of the ISL kicks off on September 21. As the tussle between the ISL clubs and the All India Football Federation (AIFF) intensifies over the availability of players, uncertainty prevails over the Asiad squad.

Under the rules, each country has to field an under-23 squad along with three senior players. Some of India’s finest national team players fall in that age group and were named in the initial squad along with seniors like the country’s highest goal-scorer Sunil Chhetri, defender Sandesh Jhinghan and goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu. However, none of these players are now likely to travel to Hangzhou.

Stimac, steadfast in his demand of having the best players in the squad, too is unlikely to accompany the Asian Games-bound team.

Incidentally, the development comes on the day The Indian Express reported that Stimac picked the team for the Asian Cup qualifiers last year on the advice of an astrologer. According to Kushal Das, the then secretary-general of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), he introduced Stimac to the astrologer who was paid “around Rs 12-15 lakh” for “professional services”.

On Tuesday, in a post on X, Stimac said: “Target or honest fighter for the betterment of Indian football? The time is coming to put all the cards on the table and see how much and who really cares about football in this country. Give it a thought before