Mumbai: India’s successful hosting of the first-ever Fifa event got a boost after Bank of Baroda became the first national supporter for the Under-17 World Cup, India 2017. The mega football event slated to be held from October 6 to 28, 2017 could have total six national supporters.
“It was not easy to organise the Under-16 AFC Championship in Goa as we didn’t have any support and rains made it more difficult. But in hosting Under-17 World Cup we have support of Bank of Baroda on board, 10 months prior to event, which will help us a great deal,” tournament director Javier Ceppi said.
Aiff secretary Kushal Das was confident that the India Under-17 team will be competitive and a few young Indian stars will be born. “Our aim is to encourage youth. I am hopeful our team will be competitive and create a few stars. I am sure some of those young players will play in Europe,” Das said.
However, the tournament will be held at a time (in October) when Aiff’s new supported product Indian Super League started over the last three seasons but Das said Aiff has a plan in place.
“We are trying to restructure Indian football where the ISL will be longer. There will be League 1 and League 2. Next season everything will start after the Under-17 Cup, if everything works according to plan,” Das said.
“It is definitely a complicated matter but we have to come with a decision by February-March 2017. We have formed a task force with AFC with a representative from Fifa to help us guide on the issue,” he added. Some of the main difficulties before Aiff are reluctance and negative signals given by many I-League clubs for any such move.
