He has a profile on football manager. 18 apparently and plays for their youth but he does not have a soccerway profile so he never played a first-team match at any level.
#Aiff (when it gets time from arranging snacks for #IMG) can perhaps start a database of these youngsters who could potentially be induced to play domestically/for India....
The best would be to scout U-16 or U-17 PIO players who could represent Indian youth teams at international level and still can continue their development at foreign academies.
I do agree this does not mean these players will be representing India at senior level (Youth player can change their nationality and can represent different country at senior level compare to youth level). But this will give two fold advantage:
a) Our youth teams will be stronger and can achieve better results.
b) Native young players can gain more knowledge from these PIO young players.
Lastly, there is an off chance than few of them might have professional career as Indian national and represent India.
This is better than scouting senior PIO players who has to surrender their passport to represent India. The passport complexity is less severe for minors in majority of the countries in India. But AIFF needs to be active in this idea.
I agree to some extent. Identifying Indian-origin players at a younger age and monitoring their progress is something I expect the AIFF to do, but I don't think they do that unfortunately. There is a chance that the younger players can be persuaded to play for India in the future too. Yan Danda at Liverpool and Matushan Sandrakumar at Valerenga are two players that come to my mind when I think of players with potential to play for India in the future. Needless to say that I think Abneet Bharti needs to be in and around the U19 squad too even though he is an Indian citizen and not a PIO.
AIFF needs to look at Domestic Football Calendar and Clubs first rather then running after Foreign Citizens of India origin who will never give away their Foreign Passport and thus unable to ever represent India. What happened to Chopra?
Comments
Harmohan Singh - Valerenga
Balraj Singh - Lillestrom SK
1) Vikash Dhorasoo
2) Michael Chopra
3) Aaron Winter
4) Luciano Narsingh.
Add anyone else also.