Kalyan Chaubey and Igor Stimac locked in a public display of affection was how the last SAFF Championship ended. Not allowed on the bench because of suspension, the India head coach was sat next to the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president when Gurpreet Singh Sandhu got a strong hand to Khaled Hajiah’s shot. As the Kanteerava shook, Kuwait lost and India won their ninth title, Chaubey jumped into Stimac’s arms.
Three years and some is long enough for friendships to fray and Chaubey and Stimac have had some falling out. Between one SAFF Championship and another, July 2023 and November 2026, Stimac was sacked, Manolo Marquez stepped down and Khalid Jamil came on board though he isn’t in Dhaka. Sunil Chhetri would play for one more year, retire, come out of retirement and retire again. India would return to the top 100 and slip, sliding away. The prospect of an Asian Cup berth that looked secure after an away win in Kuwait under Stimac would start fading under him and end in Goa with Jamil in charge.
Diaspora talent
Add to that Ryan Williams becoming a key part of the men’s team and Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka going big on tapping into the diaspora which can mean that in a few years they can leave India behind and it becomes a lot to pack. Or unpack.
The two iterations of the South Asian championship also bookend AIFF under Chaubey. “I am optimistic about my team’s chances of becoming champions,” said Naushad Moosa, India’s coach for the SAFF because Jamil will take the first team to New Zealand.
It was at Chaubey’s initiative that SAFF agreed to invite Kuwait and Lebanon. It would be a nice way to test our mettle, Chaubey had said. When the 2023 edition was held, Chaubey’s team were less than one year into the job. “Six months into our tenure, I was still paying my travel agent for plane tickets,” an AIFF official told me referring to the time and effort it took to put together all the president’s men (and women).
Elections on December 20 could tell otherwise but the group has largely stayed together. Barring Shaji Prabhakaran’s contentious ouster less than six months after the SAFF, that is. At least two more high-ranking officials, both handpicked by Chaubey, have left the AIFF House in Dwarka near Delhi but most of the states have stayed with him.
Despite allegations of corruption, constant barracking on social media, AIFF’s commercial partner opting not to renew their contract and the public fall-out with Stimac, Chaubey’s team completed their term. “Quite a feat, given all the negativity,” said an office-bearer after the special general body meeting in Kolkata on October 4 where the date for the election was announced.
The highs
Three India women’s teams in Asian finals, a bronze in the CAFA Nations Cup, invitation to the Merdeka in 2023 after 22 years, a tour of England in summer, staving off pressure to include a team at the last minute in ISL last term, asking clubs to explore the YouTube option to broadcast ISL games and getting the ISL season going in 2025-26 without a commercial partner would be the highlights of Chaubey’s presidency.
The financial implications have, for all the right reasons, got Praful Patel worried, otherwise hosting Panama, Brazil and Uruguay would have been the headline of his tenure for the right reasons. For the footballers and Jamil, it was a chance of a lifetime and they couldn’t thank the AIFF enough. For AIFF’s accountants, it is beginning to feel like what Macbeth said in one of his soliloquies: “Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself/And falls on th’other.”
The not-so-highs
Coaches coming and going for the women’s national team, clubs transferring licence to bypass the qualification process in ISL and IFL, kits arriving late and shirts and shorts not in the right size at the AFC Asian Women’s Championship, boots reaching the under-17 women’s World Cup squad even later, the inability to stick to a calendar, the struggle to cobble together a squad for the Asian Games and the promise of a charter flight to Saudi Arabia which Chaubey couldn’t keep would rank among things it could have done better.
The fundamental problems remain. Longer seasons for male and female players across age-groups (the second division in Slovenia has more games than ISL13) and not enough pitches (in France, you can basically play anywhere,” said Vikash Dhorasoo) are but two. Adding tiers to IWL and I-League began on Chaubey’s watch but a lot more needs to be done. Can work start before the next edition of the men’s SAFF?
