New Delhi: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) has extended senior national coach Igor Stimac’s contract until September, 2022, the apex body confirmed on Monday. Considering the upcoming Asian Cup qualifiers, the governing body opted for the retention of the Croatian after the meeting with its technical committee headed by the legendary footballer Shyam Thapa.
“All India Football Federation’s Technical Committee under the chairmanship of Shyam Thapa met via a video conference where Stimac made a presentation on the performance graph of the senior men’s national team wherein he highlighted about the change in football philosophy and the emergence of the future generation of the Blue Tigers in the National Team set-up,” AIFF added in its statement.
“The committee deliberated at length, and reached a consensus that in view of the external factors which has had a huge impact on the footballing world in general, and with the national team all set to begin their campaign in their quest to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup China 2023, head coach Igor Stimac be given an extension of his contract till September 2022,” the statement further explained.
Prior to his appointment as the head coach back 2019, Stimac was already a household name having managed his own country Croatia. The results under him for India were rather a bit contrasting as they managed to win just two out of 15 games while drawing six and losing seven.
However, India saw their improvement in the FIFA rankings but that wasn’t a very satisfactory as they underperformed in the recently concluded Asian qualifiers. Still, the AIFF decided to give to him another opportunity with upcoming AFC Asian Cup qualifiers, which will be played from February 2022 to September 2022 with the ‘Blue Tigers’ hoping to make it to the tournament again.
