Igor Stimac chose to talk about the return of competitive games for the Indian national team in Kerala, imploring the government to get a license for the FIFA World Cup qualifying games.
The South Indian state enjoys remarkable popularity of football, with Malayali fans making headlines during the FIFA World Cup as well as the AFC Asian Cup.
On Friday, the sports minister of Kerala, V. Abdurahiman, said that the state is planning to host world champion Argentina for friendly games in October 2025.
“We were told that all the players, including their captain (Lionel Messi), have expressed interest in playing in Kerala. They spoke about the Argentina fans in Kerala at great length,” the minister said in a Facebook post.
When asked about it in the press conference, the Croat turned his entire attention to talking about investment in competitive Indian football without uttering a word about Argentina or Messi.
“I would love to see the Kerala Government invest in licensing the actual football stadium there for a FIFA World Cup qualifying game so that we can come there and enjoy national team matches together,” Stimac said.
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FIFA, the body that governs football around the world, has strict norms about the selection of sites (section 1.3), security concerns (section 4.7), safety of players and officials (section 6.1) and for infrastructure of facilities (section 4.2), regarding the approval of stadiums for competitive games.
Even if a stadium has a minimum capacity of 10,000, which is the threshold for finals of small international tournaments, a failure to meet any of the above criteria puts a particular venue off the list of licensed venues.
Kerala had bid to host the FIFA World Cup qualifying games in August last year, with the Payyanad Stadium (Manjeri) and Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Kochi) being two possible options.
But the matches were eventually assigned to Bhubaneswar (Kalinga Stadium) and Guwahati (Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium).
Poor selection of stadium site – Payyand Stadium is far from good hotels needed for a World Cup qualifier – and lack of security norms in Kochi were some of the possible reasons which saw the games move elsewhere.
Datuk Seri Windsor John, the General Secretary of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), had even called the Nehru stadium a ‘recipe for disaster’.
“You’re just getting out of the Metro (rail) and you’re at the stadium. So, everybody is coming, so what is the safety plan?
“Of course, the stadium itself is a little bit old, needs refurbishment...dressing rooms, VIP area and all those things because when we play internationals, top teams would expect a level of facilities to be there,” John had said.
The last time the senior men’s team of India played an international match at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was nearly eight years ago, back on March 29, 2016, when it had lost 1-2 to Turkmenistan.
And the last international game it hosted remains one of the quarterfinals of the FIFA under-17 World Cup in 2017, between Spain and Iran on October 22, 2017.
“We have a lot of passion for coming to Kerala and playing the national team games but that’s not possible until we have a license granted by FIFA,” Stimac said.
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