'Some stakeholders' had focussed on their projects rather than committing to national team: Igor Stimac

This was not the first time Stimac has talked about things beyond the field of play and relating to football administration. On Wednesday, a day after he guided India to the 2023 AFC Asian Cup by topping Group D in Kolkata, he lashed out at the messy state of affairs grappling with the national federation. The AIFF is currently run by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) after the Praful Patel-led dispensation was shown the door for violating the National Sports Code.

"When I was appointed as coach (in May 2019), I was quite sure that India will have a future as a football nation but I knew it will be a difficult path," Stimac said at a virtual media interaction. "I was expecting everyone to commit to help the national team rise. Some of the parties instead concentrated on their projects.

That was surprising," the Croatian, whose current contract ends in September, said without taking any names. Stimac has repeatedly put a premium on the availability of players for national duty during international matches and he had shown his displeasure several times earlier on non release of players by the clubs. He had credited the impressive show of the team in the Asian Cup qualifiers to availability of the players for a long camp prior to the tournament.

"Only the national team's performance can take Indian football higher, not ISL." He said many things for the betterment of Indian football took a longer time to see the light of the day. "The football season is to be longer, more games need to be played, the calendar should be sorted out. At least there should be 10 months of football, 50 games for each player.

"But many things should have happened earlier. Had expected more from the government. Not