Stimac wants fewer foreigners in leagues
MUMBAI: There’s a specific reason why national coach Igor Stimac is keeping a hawk’s eye on the Indian Arrows, the All India Football Federation’s development side competing in the I-league. The Croatian has watched three of their matches at the Cooperage ground here, while also conducting a training session with the boys.
By his own admission, Stimac is on the hunt for Indian players that can enable him to create a larger pool for the senior national team. By his own admission, he isn’t finding many in either the Indian Super League (Isl)—now the country’s premier domestic tournament—or the I-league, where each club is allowed to field five foreigners in the playing XI. By his own admission, it needs to change, and soon.
“Many times I’m asked the question: ‘where are you going to find a replacement for Sunil Chhetri?’ We will never find replacement for Sunil Chhetri while the situation is like this.”
“We cannot take someone who has never played as striker and put him in the national team to play striker. Where am I going to find a striker? Even in the I-league, they have five foreign players. We don’t have a striker in the I-league, other than in Indian Arrows. We have a big problem. But nobody wants to talk about that,” Stimac said.
The 52-year-old believes that with the current roadmap for the two leagues, the ISL could adopt Asian Football Confederation’s ‘3+1’ rule for overseas players (three foreign and one Asian player in each team), while the I-league should become a developmental league featuring only homegrown players.
“We definitely need a larger pool of players. If you consider that India has a top tier of 10 clubs, of which 60% are foreign players. What’s worrying me is that I-league also has 5 foreigners. Why don’t they trust our kids? Stimac, who has led the national team to one victory, four draws and five losses since taking charge in May last year, said he has raised the concern with the national federation and the other stakeholders, but also understands what the result-oriented club culture demands. What he doesn’t understand, however, is clubs roping in foreign players who are well past their prime.
“We have 70 foreign players here, approx. Fifty-five are not good enough. Of the 15 who are good, half of them are over 35. So, we need to find a way to change things,” Stimac said.