Fifa has already done its bit to help the national team of India, backed by a country with a population of 1.4 billion, qualify for the 2026 World Cup by increasing Asia’s automatic allocation from four to eight. Now there is growing pressure on New Delhi to make a change that would increase the chances of the men’s national team heading from south Asia to North America from slight to something more substantial: to allow overseas-born players of Indian heritage active in some of the biggest leagues of Europe to represent the Blue Tigers.
Media and fans closely follow the fortunes of players of Indian origin (PIO) such as Manprit Sarkaria at Sturm Graz, Norwich’s Danny Batth, Dilan Markanday at Blackburn and Ross County’s Yan Dhanda, who would all be eligible to represent India if the country followed many others around the world.
Under Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sport rules, India does not allow players – or anyone else for that matter – to have dual nationality, a policy that means the national team, ranked 99 in the world and 18 in Asia, miss out on talent that could make a difference.
That is what Rio Ferdinand recognised in March when he suggested on Twitter that Dhanda, English of Indian descent, should be called up after the former Liverpool youth player and England Under-17s international impressed in Scotland. Ferdinand’s comments provoked an interesting conversation on social media. Shaji Prabhakaran, the general secretary of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), replied: “Dear Rio, thank you. It would be our pleasure to welcome Yan to India national team if he is willing to apply for Indian passport by moving to India. His challenge wd be to relinquish his current nationality but it will be worth as he can quickly emerge as a hero of 1.4billion.”
That may be tempting, as are the chances of a World Cup appearance as well as Asian Cup campaigns, but it comes at a potential price in terms of club careers, especially for those in the UK, where most of the players are from and play. As Dhanda explained as he responded to Prabhakaran: “Giving up my passport means I can’t play professionally in the UK and some European clubs, due to India’s Fifa ranking.”
Giving up my passport means I can’t play professionally in the UK and some European clubs, due to India’s FIFA ranking. Permitting OCI cards, similar to other countries, will allow me to represent the Indian football team as a dual national. I hope this can happen soon 🙏🏽 https://t.co/YOfT5YmnIa
— Yan (@yandhanda) March 27, 2023
UK work permits have been close to impossible to obtain for players from countries with the kind of low ranking India has, even for players with dozens of international caps. New rules announced in June allow clubs to sign a small number of players who do not quite meet the requirements because of special circumstances but this is still not seen as a realistic path for the existing PIO stars as they would then be applying for permits from a low-ranking country they have not even represented internationally.
Better, then, that the rules change over on the subcontinent. The AIFF is setting up a taskforce to collect data on footballers of Indian heritage overseas. “We want to open up a dialogue and look into various ways of allowing such players to represent the Indian football teams,” the AIFF president, Kalyan Chaubey, said last month. “We need concrete and comprehensive data to back up our arguments.” The plan is to show the government that a change could help lift India to the next level on the global stage. With the country still basking in the glow of Neeraj Chopra’s success in Budapest of winning India’s first World Athletics Championships gold medal, in the javelin, the timing may never be better.
“Achieving this goal within the short to medium term appears challenging,” Baljit Rihal, the founder of consultancy Inventive Sports, tells the Guardian regarding World Cup qualification. “Granting these players the opportunity to represent India is an actionable solution to elevate the team’s performance. Fifa has already embraced this approach for other nations, enabling players to represent their country while holding dual nationality and the Indian government stands to benefit from adopting a similar stance.”
Neighbours such as Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh have moved ahead and the India coach, Igor Stimac, is in favour of doing the same. “They now have 13 players coming from European leagues,” Stimac said of Afghanistan in 2021. “They also have two players playing in Australian clubs, and one player in the USA top division.”
Most people in football broadly seem to be in favour even if Sunil Chhetri, the national team captain and an all-round south Asian legend, has reminded people that the focus should be on developing youth at home. “I have a mixed opinion,” said the world’s third highest active men’s international goalscorer. “If the best ones are allowed or invited and they come, it always improves the team. It’s a quick fix for a shorter target but in the longer run we have to make sure that we keep grinding and finding homegrown talent.”
Such talent may good be enough for India to get through the first group stage of World Cup qualification, which starts in November. Finishing in the top two in a group containing Qatar, Kuwait and either Afghanistan or Mongolia will take India into the second group stage of qualification. That will be a much more difficult challenge but, as it starts in September 2024, there is still time to clear the notoriously sticky Indian red tape that prevents Batth, Dhanda and others from helping the world’s most populous country appear at the world’s most popular sporting event for the first time.
