Legendary footballer Bhaichung Bhutia on Saturday informed the All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) government committee that he’s resigning from his membership of the technical committee, alleging that the panel was “bypassed” whereas appointing the nationwide males’s crew head coach. Spaniard Manolo Marquez, who’s at the moment in command of Indian Super League aspect FC Goa, was on Saturday named India head coach by the AIFF government committee. He will succeed Croatian Igor Stimac, who was sacked on June 17 after India didn’t qualify for the third spherical of 2026 World Cup qualifiers.
Bhutia, who’s a co-opted member of the manager committee as a former participant and attended Saturday’s assembly right here, claimed that underneath regular observe, the technical committee recommends the pinnacle coach of the nationwide crew. The present technical panel is headed by legendary IM Vijayan.
“I’ve been chairman of AIFF technical committee prior to now (2013 to 2017) and concerned in coach appointments like in case of Stephen Constantine. It is the job of the technical committee to shortlist the candidates who’ve utilized and advocate the appropriate particular person to change into coach. But this time, there was not even a single technical committee assembly to nominate successor of Stimac,” Bhutia informed PTI.
“There was not a single assembly of technical committee to debate what number of candidates have utilized, who have been to be shortlisted, nothing of this kind occurred this time. The course of was adopted prior to now however not this time. “If you will bypass the technical committee within the head coach appointment, why are we for. I mentioned within the government committee assembly that because the technical committee was not concerned, there was no worth of technical committee, then why are we for. So, I mentioned I’m resigning from technical committee membership.” Bhutia mentioned a particular committee underneath AIFF vice chairman NA Haris was coping with the matter of discovering a successor to Stimac, and he was utterly in opposition to it.
“I utterly opposed the structure of the particular committee. There is a technical committee already in place and the way come you fashioned a particular committee to debate the appointment of the coach.
“The course of itself is improper. The coaches are employed, fired and given extension by government committee with out having any dialogue with the technical committee. The president proposes one or two names and the manager committee agrees to 1.” The different members of the AIFF technical committee embody Shabir Ali, Climax Lawrence, Victor Amalraj and Santosh Singh, amongst others.
The AIFF mentioned Vijayan attended the assembly by way of video convention.
When contacted, AIFF performing Secretary General M Satyanarayan additionally mentioned Vijayan was consulted within the coach appointment course of.
“There shouldn’t be any controversy right here. I believe technical committee chairman was consulted,” Satyanarayan mentioned.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
