Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come

India’s poor ranking and failure to produce a team capable of at least competing at the Asian level has been a source of great embarrassment for a nation of over a billion.

FIFA and AFC have previously urged India to cast its net beyond its borders to create a winning team.

The AIFF has missed out on high-quality players in the past and they cannot continue to miss out going forward.

The 2014 World Cup showed how nations assiduously courted players from the diaspora to boost their talent pools.

Strikingly, two-thirds of the footballers at the 2014 World Cup were migrants. 16 of the Algerian squad of 23 were born in France. This partly reflects an active Algerian strategy of Diaspora recruitment, broadly similar to that which took the Republic of Ireland to several World Cups.

Iran had also taken advantage of its vast Iranian Diaspora, including at least 10 foreign-based players in the squad.

United States are not far behind. Their German coach has discovered players across Europe, who have American roots and convinced them to represent the US national team.

Bosnia's squad tells a more recent story of a Diaspora scattered by civil war. Five of its members were born abroad. Another five were born in Bosnia, yet were youth internationals wearing the shirts of adopted countries - Holland, Canada, Germany - before choosing to play for Bosnia.

The recent 2018 World Cup is no different. Countries have turned to a global diaspora to achieve success in football.

The Moroccan squad featured 17 players out of the 23 born outside the country - Eight in France, five in the Netherlands, two in Spain, and one each in Canada and Belgium.

Tunisia had nine foreign-born players on their roster. While eight out of the nine on Senegal’s were born in France.

In 2008 the Indian government issued a notification making non–citizens ineligible to represent India. That meant several promising players of Indian Origin were ineligible, latest casualty being Danny Batth, former captain of Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Danny Batth expressed his disappointment, stating, “I think it is the only country in the world where they don’t like players from different countries coming back to play and represent them”.

Liverpool teenage prodigy, Yan Dhanda, Norwegian born Harmeet Singh, South African born Luther Singh, New Zealander Sarpreet Singh have all expressed a desire to represent India but have been left disappointed by the total lack of support.

Indian head coach Stephen Constantine gave an interesting solution regarding the issue of including PIO players in the national team. "I am not talking about naturalisation of a PIO to become an Indian citizen. What I am saying is, give the PIO players temporary passport to be able to play for India. Once they are not playing for the country, they will not be able to use these passports," he said.

He further added, "I got this temporary passport in Rwanda. I had this temporary Rwanda passport when I go for international matches (as coach) outside Rwanda. Once, the match is over, they (Rwanda authorities) will take away this temporary passport. I cannot buy any land or own any property in Rwanda because it was just a temporary passport, but this idea is not a long-term solution. It is just a temporary solution."

For football to prosper and flourish in India, the national team has to be competitive. And including PIO players would vastly improve the national team. It would bring in more media coverage, more sponsors, inspire kids to take up the sport, give Indian football a big boost all the way down to grassroots football.

Even though India have qualified for the 2019 Asia Cup and their ranking has improved vastly over the past couple of years, it does not paint a true picture of Indian football. For Indian football's sake, let's hope the rules are changed, creating a pathway for PIO players to represent India on the International stage.