Stephen Constantine, the head coach of the Indian football team, praised the Indian Super League on Wednesday for making Indian football “universal”, reported PTI on Tuesday.
“The ISL has made us universal. It has told everybody in the world that Indians not only play football but we’re not bad either, and we have some good players,” said Constantine, on the conclusion of the All Indian Football Federation’s two-day workshop for scouting for coaches.
While expressing his happiness at the team’s current FIFA ranking (101st), he did not wish to answer on any questions regarding a merger between the Indian Super League and the I-League.
“All I am interested is that there are games with Indian players, so that I can select them for the national team. I’ve said quite a bit about a lot of things,” said the 54-year-old coach. “We don’t need to be talking about that today.”
Constantine’s current comments on the Indian Super League come as a signficant departure from his earlier stand in 2015 when he had remarked that, “No cares about who wins the ISL outside India”. This had caused much consternation within the AIFF with Kushal Das, the general secretary of the AIFF, commenting in March, “I have explained to Stephen several times that his role is to take the national team to the Asian Cup. He should not be looking at anything else.”
Back at the event, Constantine also praised Sunil Chhetri and Baichung Bhutia and expressed his happiness at the fact that India will be hosting the Under-17 World Cup in October later this year.
“We should make the most of that, because once that World Cup closes we are on our own. We need to make sure that we maintain the facilities, make sure that the pitches are okay two-three years later. We don’t come back looking for fields,” said Constantine.“It’s very very important that we take advantage of everything that FIFA are providing in terms of structure. But we got to maintain them ourselves after they are gone.”
