AIFF to decide Manolo Marquez's future on June 29, confirms contact with 33 OCI holders

New Delhi, June 13 All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Kalyan Chaubey has confirmed that the executive committee will be meeting on June 29 to review the tenure of India head coach Manolo Marquez after a string of poor results.

New Delhi, June 13 All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Kalyan Chaubey has confirmed that the executive committee will be meeting on June 29 to review the tenure of India head coach Manolo Marquez after a string of poor results.

Manolo was appointed in August 2024, after the controversial exit of Igor Stimac, and has since led the team to only one victory, a 3-0 win in a friendly over Maldives.

After having faced elimination in the third round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers last year, India also find themselves in a position of trouble in regards to qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, a tournament the team has not missed out on since they expanded it to 24 teams in 2019.

“Manolo Marquez is a highly rated coach and has a good understanding of Indian football and the players. However, in the past few days, I have received several calls on whether the coach will continue or not. We have an executive committee meeting on June 29, where we will take a call on that,” Chaubey told reporters in a press conference on Friday.

The AIFF president also went on to pinpoint on what was going wrong with the national team and believes the lack of Indian forwards has resulted in the poor performances. India has scored only seven goals since the beginning of 2024, out of which three came against Maldives.

“It is true that our national team has struggled to secure victories against teams like Malaysia, Bangladesh and Hong Kong but it is highly unrealistic that we expect wins without goals. India needs a good striker. One solution is to reduce the game time of foreign strikers and give more chances to Indian forwards in domestic football,” he added.

There has also been a lot of talk surrounding the approval of Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cardholders for representing the country after being banned in 2008. Only Indian passport holders are allowed to compete for the nation. Fans across social media have pleaded for a while to permit OCI holders to represent the nation and the AIFF president confirmed that they are in contact with 33 players eligible for the same.

“The fans and others have been asking about the OCI (Overseas Citizens of India) players. A lot of the countries ranked below have used the process of naturalised players. The AIFF are in contact with the 33 players who are eligible for the OCI card. Some of them have already received the card and AIFF is helping others with the same. AIFF is trying their best and within their capacity to get the approval and include the players in the squad,” Kalyan said.

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