Soon after Indian Olympic Association (IOA) defended its decision of not sending Indian football teams, both men and women, for the upcoming Asian Games, Indian football fans slammed the governing body and even termed them as ‘most corrupt’.
IOA on July 5 justified its decision by saying that they are not potential medal winners and there is no place for ‘also rans’ in the squad.
“It is not that we personally like those sports and have included them. They have been winning medals and are expected to win at the Asian Games too. There were another 5-6 lesser known sports besides pencak silat but we did not include them because they were not potential medal winners,” Batra told PTI.
Following this statement, the Twitter was flooded with angry tweets. Here are some of the reactions:
How the hell they can say that India Can’t win a Medal in football ?
I Mean our team has grown from 165 rank to 97 in FIFA ,and if you exclude them from Asian games now this is wrong !#IndianFootballTeam#IOAhttps://t.co/IuSvs3xwzx— Tarun Jain (@tarunj096) July 6, 2018
@Ra_THORe The IOA denied Indian football team from participating in the Asian Games. This is a pity as the team needs moral support, has been doing good and has significantly improved in FIFA ranking! Please intervene!
— Rishmish (@Rishmish2) July 6, 2018
#IOA @Ra_THORe @PMOIndia
Sir, I had been a big admirer of you and your Govt. till this moment. It’s so pathetic to see #IOA not sending Indian Football Team to Asia Games.
And the worst part is that you are not even doing anything for @IndianFootball— samapan banik (@samapan0) July 6, 2018
Football teams were ignored because they are not ranked in the top-8 in Asia.
@narendramodi
Sir
Ioa has decided not to send indian football team to participate in asian games.and the reason for that shit decision was indian football will lose the game and they won’t win medals for india
Who the hell is narender batra to underrate indian football team a pic.twitter.com/4AKoe3qs3g— Sujith K Krishnan (@SujithKKrishnan) July 6, 2018
Every of our neighbor countries is playing football in Asian games who are far behind in ranking but we’re not
Thank you @Ra_THORe Sir and IOA 🙂#BackTheBlue pic.twitter.com/1nwFfPB2Xh— Sourav (@souravOs) July 6, 2018
Bt we’r here talking here bout Asian games n not World cup!A IOA is Indian Olympic Association. How can they decide who plays in Asian games.IOA has role in pushing India’s contrntiin in gemes n not to rule out its own team, who BTW r in fab form #BackTheBlue
— Aby2016 (@abyisnow) July 6, 2018
The decision comes as a massive setback for the All India Football Federation (AIFF), which was hoping to use the Asian Games as one of the key tournaments in the build-up to the 2019 Asian Cup.
I would rather hear “Desh k liye khela” than “Desh k liye mara”. But the decision by IOA makes it clear that sending people to a war is easier than sending them to represent India in Football. @BluePilgrims #InquilabEIndianFootball #IndianFootballForAsiad
— Waseem Ahmed (@Waseem_Ahmed11) July 6, 2018
Shame on IOA… very corrupt organization.
— Nima Tsh Shrpa (@sherpa_nima) July 6, 2018
Recently, Indian football team won the Intercontinental cup held in Mumbai. Following the win, Team India jumped from 173 to 97 in the world rankings.
This will be the first time since the 1994 Hiroshima edition that an Indian team will not take part in the football competition of the Asian Games.
