Arsene Wenger, head of FIFA’s Global Football Development Task Force, will help develop Indian football at the grassroots level, All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Kalyan Chaubey said as he presented the Vision 2047 roadmap on Saturday.
Arsene Wenger, famous for his coaching stint at English Premier League club Arsenal, wrote to the AIFF and pledged his team’s support to help move Indian football forward. Kalyan Chaubey also spoke to senior FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) officials on the sidelines of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
“We’ve had extensive discussions with the FIFA development team,” Chaubey said during the Vision 2047 unveiling ceremony. “Arsene Wenger is the head of the FIFA Task Force and they will help us with grassroots programs. would come,” Kalyan told Chaubey.
In addition to being FIFA’s head of Global Football Development, Wenger is a member of FIFA’s football and technical advisory panels and chairman of FIFA’s technical study group. Wenger’s role also focuses on coaching education.
According to Vision 2047, the AIFF plans to see India among the top four football nations in Asia.
The 24-year program was divided into six four-year strategic plans. The first of the six plans will seek to cover the period up to 2026, where the AIFF will aim to increase participation at grassroots level.
For women’s football, the AIFF intends to create a four-tier league system in the first stage. The top tier will be occupied by the 10-team Indian Women’s League. The next levels will be the second division, five zonal leagues and a new youth women’s league in the respective order.
The AIFF will look to ensure that a minimum of 20 states implement the new women’s youth structures by 2027. For men’s football, the AIFF wants to create a three-tier national league system with 40 teams.
The Indian Super League and I-League will have 14 teams each, while the second division of the I-League will consist of 12 teams.
The AIFF also aims to renew the domestic structure in such a way that the municipal and district leagues feed the state championships.
Along similar lines, the AIFF wants a renewed structure of the men’s youth league, with the local state youth league and the elite youth league running concurrently. The winning club or academy team from the state youth leagues will be promoted to the elite youth league.
The AIFF also proposed an observation framework based on data from elite youth league systems for its national teams.
