India’s FIFA rankings have plunged to 157, its lowest ever. The AIFF secretary general Alberto Colaco, has woken up to the fact. “The repeated defeats in the Asian Cup qualifiers with margins such as 7-1, 6-0 and 3-0 have hurt our rankings considerably,” Colaco said.
He said with the kind of ranking India has at present, it was very difficult to even think about qualification for tournaments like the Asia Cup.
It seems Colaco is going through a reality check because his boss, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, still lives in cloud cuckoo land.
It is the stated objective of the President of the All India Football Federation, Mr Priyaranjan Das Munshi, that India will be represented in the 2010 World Cup finals.
Maybe we should not take this literally to mean India’s qualification to the World Cup, after all if Das Munshi swings another junket to South Africa, he will “represent” India in the World Cup.
Iraq with a civil war is 82, Sudan and its Darfur problem ranks 112, Palestine with its factional infighting is 131, St. Kitts and Nevis which have precious little real estate for football fields are 143, Bangladesh with a declared emergency is 151. Go figure.