AIFF technical committee recommends extension of Igor Stimac's contract till AFC Asian Cup

Kolkata, Sep 18 (IANS) The new technical committee of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) under the chairmanship of I.M Vijayan on Sunday recommended the extension of India men's team head coach Igor Stimac's contract till the AFC Asian Cup 2023.

The Technical Committee, led by Vijayan and consisting of Deputy Chairman Manoranjan Bhattacharya, Climax Lawrence, Harjinder Singh, Arun Malhotra, Eugeneson Lyngdoh, and Pinky Bompal Magar, met and discussed a wide range of topics.

The recommendations from the meeting will be presented to the Executive Committee when it meets on Monday in Kolkata.

"In the first agenda of the meeting, the Technical Committee recommended the extension of Senior Men's Team Head Coach Igor Stimac's contract till the AFC Asian Cup 2023," the AIFF said in a release.

During the meeting, the improvement of coaching in India was also discussed by the committee, which insisted that all national coaches be used in every age group so that they gain more experience to take Indian Football forward together.

Meanwhile, the technical committee decided to discontinue the participation of the Indian Arrows in the I-League because of the difficulty in fulfilling the AFC Licensing criteria. The finances used for the Indian Arrows will now be invested in creating a new Elite Youth League in the country.

"I was glad to see so many familiar faces from the footballing community in this first meeting of the new Technical Committee today. It feels good that the technical matters of Indian Football are being taken care of by former footballers," said Technical Committee Chairman, IM Vijayan.

"We had an extremely fruitful meeting, and it is our hope that we can take Indian Football to greater heights with the decisions that we made here," he added.

The committee also recommended appointing more women coaches across the country for the women's national teams. It has also asked for fresh plans for the development of women's football in the country, as well as the senior women's national team.

Earlier in the day, the members of the AIFF Executive Committee visited the National Centre of Excellence and inspected the venue.

"The new management will evaluate the project and finalise a revised plan after discussing in the Executive Committee meeting on how to complete the project for the optimum usage of the facility," the release further said.

Later, the Technical Committee members met the AIFF President Kalyan Chaubey and discussed various aspects of the development of Indian football.