Hamza Choudhury, the English Premier League footballer, did very well for Bangladesh in the recently held India-Bangladesh match where India could not win even on home soil. Suddenly, there is clamour over whether players of Indian origin should play for India. There is a rule which stops them. Coach Igor Stimac had made and advocated this point as India coach. Why did he do it? Is it the only solution?
We wanted to discuss the way forward for Indian football. It’s a year since Stimac left the job. Manolo Marquez has taken it over and, no disrespect to Stimac or Marquez, the truth of the matter is that Indian football has not progressed even one bit.
Coach, thank you very much for joining me. What are your thoughts on whether Indian-origin players should play for India, and is that a quick solution for the progress of Indian football?
Stimac: First of all, I would like to say hi to everyone who is watching us and who is following your show and showing real care and interest for Indian football and its progress. I would not dramatize too much over the loss against Bangladesh. I remember very well that at the beginning of my work, we had very similar results. At the end of the day, that doesn’t mean anything.
There are plenty of games ahead of us. But the crucial question here is well raised, where Indian football is going and where is the solution to improve it quicker. So, I was not the first one mentioning that possibility or a way of improving Indian football with a shortcut involving players of Indian origin. It was mentioned even when Bob Houghton was the coach there, long prior to myself.
So, all the coaches were mentioning that not only to protect our own position as the national team head coach, but to help Indian football in a real way to improve very quickly. I will remind you now when I took over the job in India, very soon we noticed a huge lack of core strength and technical and tactical knowledge among the players, which were then playing for the national team.
And the question raised among the coaching staff was how to overcome such problems within the Indian national team. And we found only two solutions. The one was involving foreign-based players in the process, convincing thesport authorities of India that the law needs to be changed if we want a successful national team.
And the second one was getting more time for work with the national team, which meant we needed to somehow convince FSDL, our partner there, that the calendar of the competition of ISL needed to be adapted more in favour of the national team’s success. Obviously, we were not successful in convincing decision-makers of what needs to be done for
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Indian football to improve quicker, because there were other interests there. I will not go talking about that. They will give the answer if they want, why that was done. But I can prove that we were right because I will remind you that the best and most successful two campaigns during my tenure as a national team coach were after we were given enough time to work with the players.
And these were two long camps. We had one prior to the Asian Cup qualifiers, which were held in Kolkata, where we defeated all three teams in our group with a goal difference of +7 and in style, with great football playing at the Salt Lake Stadium. And the second one was when we had a long camp in 2023, during May and June, prior to the Hero Intercontinental Cup in Orissa and SAFF cup in Bengaluru.
Just to sort of be Devil’s Advocate, last year before the 6th June match [World Cup qualifier against Kuwait], you also had a long camp that did not yield results. Maybe you say it was a one-off, but you did have a long camp. Coming back to this PIO thing, when I see some of the other teams, be it Bangladesh recently, but also quite a lot of other countries… you follow global football more than me. This is a model that is being followed by many other countries.
Stimac: All of them. I don’t know any country which is not using this model. Croatia played France last week in the Nations League quarterfinals here. And we could clearly see that in the starting lineup of the French team, there were nine players who were with origin which had nothing to do with France.
You know, they are representing the French national team. Many countries. Croatia is surviving at the highest level of world football because they use this too. We use many players who were born in Australia, who were born in Germany, and developed in their football structure. But they feel Croatian, they want to represent Croatia, and we open the door for them to do so.
And a lot of footballers have already been pretty vocal about this, that they want to play for India. They want to come and play for the Indian national team. I see Manolo Marquez literally being forced to bring back Sunil Chhetri. That cannot be a good solution for Indian football in any which way.
Stimac: I will remind you of another thing which I was insisting on. If we are still keeping so many foreign players in the starting XIs in ISL, which is the top-level league in India, then we’re not going to be successful in producing new players for the crucial and core positions in the team. That’s obvious because there is no place where they can develop their abilities.
If you remember, I was even suggesting if we keep the same rule in ISL of 4 (3 + 1) foreign players in the starting XI, then we need to insist that I-Leagues need to be played without foreign players. These leagues need to be a place where Indian-origin players will be developed in the crucial positions for football’s future. We are not allowing talented Indian boys to develop themselves. They don’t have places to play.
🚨 #IgorStimac Exclusive
“I-League needs to be played without foreign players”
“Bringing him (Sunil Chhetri) back was a short-term solution”
Former India head coach @stimac_igor explosive — OCI players, ISL format, #ManoloMarquez, return of #SunilChhetri, focus on national… pic.twitter.com/taLJHLhWLO
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) March 31, 2025
Now you have touched a very raw nerve. It is that whole club-versus-country debate. Suppose I am Mohun Bagan. Suppose I am Mumbai [City FC].I am Bengaluru. Yes, I want to win the ISL. Why should I agree to such a thing? I am a club. That is number one. Number two, do you think we have talent? Do you have that belief?
Stimac: Absolutely. With the proper structure, with so many millions of people and such a young country, with so much talent in all aspects. If you start working properly at the proper age with the youngsters, with the good coaches, you will develop great players. But it takes decades, starting to work with the players at the age of seven until you develop a proper player at the age of 18. But there, you need a place to play.
And if those places are occupied by foreign players, this player and all the work you have done with him is disappearing because you will put him on the side. You will not put him in the crucial positions because these are occupied by the foreign players.
The other problem is the quality of the foreign players we are bringing there. You are telling me about teams, they have the ambition of winning ISL. What is the gain for the clubs besides the owner lifting the trophy? Are they successful in Asian cups?
Real merit should be winning the Asian cup [competitions] if you are doing well with your clubs.
Where we stand, even with the foreign players, we are losing to Maldives clubs, to Bangladesh clubs, to all these low-level nations in Asian competition. So, there is no benefit for Indian football. We need to be honest about that. So is football in India just competition among the rich guys, or are they working together to develop Indian football?
Part 2 of this interview will be published at 1:30 pm on March 31.
Also Read: AIFF have their hands tied up – Subrata Dutta on the chances of PIOs and OCIs playing for India