Indian football team head coach Igor Stimac on July 17 (Monday) penned an emotional request to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking him to allow the Blue Tigers to participate in the upcoming Asian Games. Indian football team, which is currently on a hot streak having won three back-to-back competitions - Tri-nation Series, the Intercontinental Cup and the SAFF Championships, is not slated to participate in the Asian Games according to the advisory released by the Sports Ministry.
The Indian football team doesn't meet the criteria set by the Sports Ministry which states "for team events, only those sports which have achieved a ranking up to eighth among participating countries of Asia in the last one year should be considered for participation in Asian Games".
Reacting to the directive issued by the higher authorities, Stimac urged PM Modi to allow the Indian football team to travel to China later in the year.
"A humble appeal and sincere request to Honourable Prime Minister Sri @narendramodi ji and Hon. Sports Minister @ianuragthakur, to kindly allow our football team to participate in the Asian games. We will fight for our nation’s pride and the flag! Jai Hind!" Stimac said in a tweet.
With his tweet, Stimac also attached a lengthy statement targetted at convincing PM Modi and Anurag Thakur so that the Indian football team can participate in the Asian Games.
"Honourable Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi ji, I am not sure if someone would have briefed you or updated you about the Indian teams participating in the upcoming Asian Games, where the most important and the key global sport "football" team has been deprived from participating and representing the Indian flag," the statement read.
"India hosted the U-17 FIFA World Cup in 2017 and invested heavily in building a very fine new generation of players. You have always supported India's dream of playing in FIFA World Cup one day and I am certain that if we have your continuous support in the manner we have received till date, the day is not far when we will be at the global stage participating in the most prestigious tournaments. We as a national team have worked extremely hard in the last 4 years and managed some great results, proving that we can achieve more if we get the support from all stakeholders. Your speech about football and Mbappe in your recent visit to France also touched all Indians dreaming and rooting for Indian football.
"I wanted to bring to your immediate attention that our U-17 team from 2017, which also gave a great performance at the U-23 World Cup qualifiers and is one very talented team, is now being deprived from participating in the Asian games. This team really needs and deserves the participation. The reasons given are unjust and as India's national team coach, I felt it's important to immediately bring this matter to your and the Hon'ble Sports Minister Anurag Thakur's knowledge. So that you could intervene and help the team participate in the Asian Games. There are hopes and prayers of 1 billion Indians for the beautiful game and we need such participation. As our own ministry is denying the participation on the context of ranking. Whereas the fact is that our football team is better ranked than some of the other sports teams which have been allowed participation in the Asian games. Also history and statistics are testimony to the fact that football is one sport where a lower ranked team has a chance to beat the top ranked teams.
"So my humble appeal and sincere request on behalf of the entire Indian Football fraternity to you, to kindly allow our football team to participate in the Asian games A We will fight for our nation's pride and the flag! Jai Hind!" it concluded.
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