Confusion continues to reign surrounding the selection of the Indian men’s football team at the Asian Games, five days before its first match.
The Sports Ministry’s squad, part of the final list of 655 participants, released late on Thursday, is very different from the one released by the All India Football Federation (AIFF), a day earlier, on Wednesday.
The Ministry has retained the core of the squad, announced first by the AIFF on August , making six changes to it. Players such as Sandesh Jhingan and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu – who were cut from AIFF’s revised list– are included in it.
After the India Super League clubs refused to release some of its players, the AIFF announced a revised list for the Asiad on Wednesday, making 13 changes to its original squad (August 1).
But the list from the Centre was very different.
Vishal Yadav (Jamshedpur FC), Ayush Dev Chhetri (FC Goa), Liston Colaco (Mohun Bagan Super Giant), Abdul Rabeeh (Hyderabad FC), Samuel James (Punjab FC) and Vincy Barretto (Chennaiyin FC) replaced Lalengmawia (Mumbai City FC), Rohit Danu (Bengaluru FC), Dheeraj Singh Moiranghthem (FC Goa), Roshan Singh Naorem (Bengaluru FC), Siva Saksthi Narayanan (Bengaluru FC) and Asish Rai (Mohun Bagan), respectively.
The list also mentions Igor Stimac as the men’s team head coach.
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Indian Super League club FC Goa said that the club was not made aware of the latest development.
“This is definitely something that comes as news to us, if this is indeed the case, as Dheeraj’s name was included in the squad announced yesterday and we have received no official communication to inform us otherwise,” FC Goa responded to a query from Sportstar.
Sportstar reached out to AIFF but it was not available for comment.
India plays host China in its opening game on September 19, and Bangladesh and Myanmar on September 21 and 24, respectively.
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