The draw for the U17 FIFA World Cup took place in Mumbai on Friday evening and was attended by the who’s who of the Indian footballing fraternity. Opening the event was Sports Minister Vijay Goel, who addressed the people present and he was followed by Sunil Gulati, the President of the United States Soccer Federation and a member of the FIFA Council.
Next up was the President of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) Praful Patel and in his speech, he made a glaring error regarding the history of Indian football. He said, “India qualified for the FIFA World Cup in the 1950s,” after which he added, “it was the 1958 FIFA World Cup.”
He continued by saying, “We were not allowed to participate as we played barefoot and that was not allowed by FIFA.”
However, the facts are quite different from what the AIFF President said. It was in fact in the 1950 FIFA World Cup, held in Brazil, that India were eligible to play in. The Brazilian federation were also willing to pay a portion of India’s travel expenses by ship to their nation, but the AIFF chose not to send the team all the way to South America.
The reason for this decision is not quite clear, though, according to renowned football expert Novy Kapadia. A popular myth about this was that the Indian team was not allowed as they could only play barefoot, but it is not a plausible explanation and is not backed with adequate evidence.
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The possible reasons are many – the most important one being that the FIFA World Cup was not as popular at the time as it is now and did not have the same appeal it enjoys in the current day. India at the time had recently become independent from British rule and were not sure about spending a large sum of money to send a team all the way to Brazil.
Another explanation that is often offered is that the AIFF chose to focus on the 1952 Olympics scheduled to be held in Helsinki. The Olympics were a much bigger proposition at the time and it is understandable the governing body opted to focus on that.
Patel was subsequently trolled on Twitter after his gaffe as well.
