Hey!! Indian football fans as you are all aware that FIFA World Cup 2018 is ready to kickstart and everyone in the world is super excited to witness it. But, the level of excitement in India will be less because Indian football team is not participating in that.
It is a sad reality that India has never participated in the senior tournament of the World Cup. The only time India had a chance to compete at the FIFA World Cup was in 1950, but our authorities refused.
So why didn’t they go? Was it the lack of enthusiasm from the senior official staff?
There are many myths and facts disclosed defining the reason why Indian football team is not playing for FIFA World Cup. Some said that India after independence didn’t have enough funds to visit abroad to play for the tournament; some believed that they wanted to play barefoot and it was against football rules. However, the truth which was hiding in the shadows from the last 71 years is revealed now.
According to the reports of the AIFF (All India Football Federation) it has been revealed that the reason for Indian Football team not participating in World Cup Match in Brazil was that the team was not ready to play for the international matches. Even though Brazil offered sponsors for all expenses for Team India, AIFF refused it.
AIFF was also concerned about the fitness of the team because they were prepared for matches of only 70 minutes and World Cup teams played 90 minutes.
In addition, there were teams like Scotland, Turkey, Ireland and Portugal who also missed the tournament.
For all these reasons, AIFF thought it was useless to participate only to be humiliated later in the world.
Sailen Manna, Indian Football Captain of 1950’s quoted in the AIFF magazine stating that at that time they had no idea of world cup football matches. For them the only focus was Olympics.
Finally, one thing is certain: the reluctance of Indian players to play in shoes has never been the cause of the defeat of our country in a World Cup.This is something that the nation regrets, as now India after 71 years of independence, India is yet to play at the highest level of football.