AIFF President Praful Patel agrees with Technical Committee’s ‘3+1’ recommendation

All India Football Federation (AIFF) president Praful Patel on Friday was briefed by general secretary Kushal Das about the technical committee’s recommendations regarding of implementing the 3+1 foreigner rule in the Indian Super League (ISL) and I-League from the 2021-2022 season.

Sources close to Goal can confirm that the India FA president was reportedly pleased with the recommendations of the technical committee and suggested that it was the right move for the betterment of Indian football.

Earlier on Friday, the technical committee chaired by legendary Indian footballer Shyam Thapa had made its recommendations about implementing the ‘3+1’ foreigners rule in the Indian domestic football complying with the AFC rule of foreigners. The rule says that every team can field three overseas players of any nationality and one overseas player from any of the AFC nations.

But the above rule will be put to effect on after the 2020-21 season which means that both the ISL and I-League will maintain a status quo for the upcoming season.

Patel had also convened a meeting via video conferencing with all the national team coaches to know about the development of all the age group teams amidst the nation-wide lockdown.

Igor Stimac (senior national team coach), Maymol Rocky (senior women’s national team coach), Shanmugam Venkatesh (India U-19 coach) and Shuvendu Panda (India U-15 coach) were in attendance at the meeting.

Appreciating the work of all the coaches during the Coronavirus crisis, Patel said, “These are challenging times for everybody and that no one had seen anything like this. We need to be patient.

“There’s a huge amount of work going on at the age-group level, and all of that is our constant effort to bring in a big change in India’s football culture. India is a big country with a lot of limitations but our effort is to continue on the process for laying a strong foundation for the future of Indian Football teams.”