"It's a great day for Indian football" - Igor Stimac lauds Sports Ministry's decision to send the national team to the Asian Games

The manager of the Indian men's football team, Igor Stimac, lauded the Indian Sports Ministry's decision to allow them to participate in the upcoming Asian Games. The mega event is set to be held in Hangzhou, China, from 23 September.

Stimac thanked Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur as well. The ministry had earlier decided not to let either the men's or the women's team participate as they did not feature in the top eight-ranked teams in Asia.

In a tweet posted earlier today, Stimac wrote:

"It’s a great day for Indian football, an enormously encouraging decision by the ministry of sports, honourable sports minister Anurag Thakur and our government!"

Mentioning the critical role that the president of AIFF, Kalyan Chaubey and secretary general Shaji Prabhakaran played in this decision, the Croat added:

"Big thanks to them for recognising our recent results and making it possible to challenge ourselves at the Asian Games against big footballing countries. Big thanks to our President Kalyan Chaubey, SG Shaji Prabhakaran (sic) and all the others who were involved to help us win this battle!"

Igor Stimac also thanked the supporters of the national team for demanding that the national team be sent for the Asian Games.

"At the end, the most important thing, the love our supporters showed sending millions of msgs (sic) and tweets, proving how much passion we have in India for football! Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Sports Ministry allows both the men's and women's teams to participate in Asian Games

The Sports Ministry of the Government of India has relaxed the rules to allow both the men's and women's football teams to participate in the upcoming Asian Games. Both these sides were earlier prevented from doing so as they did not fall in the ministry's criteria of being in the top eight-ranked teams in the continent.

However, it is heartening to see that they ultimately allowed the senior teams to send their respective contingents. It's a decision that was swayed undoubtedly by the men's team's stellar showing in the recently-concluded Tri-Nation series and SAFF Championships.

Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, in a tweet posted earlier in the day, confirmed the news. He wrote:

"The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, has decided to relax the rules to facilitate participation of both the teams, which were not qualifying as per the existing criterion. Keeping in mind their latest performances in the recent times, the Ministry decided to grant the relaxation."

This will give a major boost to football in the country. Both the men's and women's teams are expected to put their best foot forward in the tournament and make the nation proud with their exploits.