Indian football team's remaining FIFA World Cup qualifiers to be held in Qatar
India will play their remaining three FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Qatar as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) decided to host the matches in centralised venues owing to the coronavirus -related travel and quarantine restrictions.
As per the original schedule, the Indian team would have played against Qatar at home, Bangladesh away and Afghanistan at home, but the global pandemic has forced radical changes in the fixtures.
"FIFA World Cup 2022 host Qatar, will welcome Group E opponents Oman, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh with Japan set to provide the stage for the matches in Group F comprising Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Myanmar and Mongolia," the AFC said in a release on Friday.
"Following a process of close consultation with Asia's Member Associations, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has today confirmed the centralised venues for the Asian Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 matches scheduled to take place from 31 May to 15 June, 2021."
Jamie Day weighs in on naturalisation of foreign players
Meanwhile, the coach has weighed in on the issue of naturalisation of foreign players to bolster the forward line after a Nigerian player, playing in the domestic circuit for close to a decade, recently acquired Bangladeshi citizenship to become eligible to represent the Red and Greens. https://www.thedailystar.net/sports/news/extremely-disappointed-afc-2061209
"If he has a Bangladesh passport, then he can play for Bangladesh. No
problem," Day said when asked about 31-year-old Eleta Kingsley's
chances of representing Bangladesh.
"You can look at it two ways. If we give citizenship to foreign
players, [in a] short time, we are going to get better results. But in
longer term, it's going to stop the progress of the local players... If
we use foreign players, it will improve the squad. But also we need to
give the local players the opportunity to play for the national team. So
we need to make sure everyone gets the opportunity to do that," the
coach opined.
I would be happy at this until we qualify for the WC for the very first time. Then aftrewards, we won't feel proud about it..
The thing is, in India, this will work differently IMO. Even If PIOs are allowed to play for the national team, this will bolster the squad for sure but more visible impact will be of getting the European football watching crowd excited for Indian football as well which in turn will create more buzz, which will lead to more viewership which will lead to better sponsorships and corporate funding which hopefully will improve the grassroots and we will have a nice structure. Imagine someone like Yan Dhanda, a Liverpool graduate playing for India and just think how excited the European football fanboys will become. I can picture a trending hashtag on Twitter already!
Indian NT's camp for Asian Cup qualifiers, which was earlier scheduled to begin in Kolkata from 2nd May, probably won't be held in India due to rising COVID-19 cases. The team might directly head to Qatar, said Kushal Das. Formal announcement likely in a day or two. Also confirmed by Marcus.
Marcus also informed that India tried to arrange some friendlies next month with Vietnam, Malaysia and Turkmenistan but it didn't work out, they might have to settle with playing a club in Qatar
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Indian football team's remaining FIFA World Cup qualifiers to be held in Qatar
India will play their remaining three FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Qatar as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) decided to host the matches in centralised venues owing to the coronavirus -related travel and quarantine restrictions.
As per the original schedule, the Indian team would have played against Qatar at home, Bangladesh away and Afghanistan at home, but the global pandemic has forced radical changes in the fixtures.
"FIFA World Cup 2022 host Qatar, will welcome Group E opponents Oman, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh with Japan set to provide the stage for the matches in Group F comprising Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Myanmar and Mongolia," the AFC said in a release on Friday.
"Following a process of close consultation with Asia's Member Associations, the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has today confirmed the centralised venues for the Asian Qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 and AFC Asian Cup China 2023 matches scheduled to take place from 31 May to 15 June, 2021."
https://www.firstpost.com/sports/indian-football-teams-remaining-fifa-world-cup-qualifiers-to-be-held-in-qatar-9409261.html
Extremely disappointed with AFC
Jamie Day weighs in on naturalisation of foreign players
Meanwhile, the coach has weighed in on the issue of naturalisation of foreign players to bolster the forward line after a Nigerian player, playing in the domestic circuit for close to a decade, recently acquired Bangladeshi citizenship to become eligible to represent the Red and Greens.https://www.thedailystar.net/sports/news/extremely-disappointed-afc-2061209
"If he has a Bangladesh passport, then he can play for Bangladesh. No problem," Day said when asked about 31-year-old Eleta Kingsley's chances of representing Bangladesh.
"You can look at it two ways. If we give citizenship to foreign players, [in a] short time, we are going to get better results. But in longer term, it's going to stop the progress of the local players... If we use foreign players, it will improve the squad. But also we need to give the local players the opportunity to play for the national team. So we need to make sure everyone gets the opportunity to do that," the coach opined.
I would be happy at this until we qualify for the WC for the very first time. Then aftrewards, we won't feel proud about it..
Bangladesh lose to hosts Nepal 2-1 in tri-nation final
https://www.dhakatribune.com/sport/football/2021/03/29/bangladesh-lose-to-hosts-nepal-2-1-in-tri-nation-finalMarcus also informed that India tried to arrange some friendlies next month with Vietnam, Malaysia and Turkmenistan but it didn't work out, they might have to settle with playing a club in Qatar