India’s U-16 coach Nicolai Adam has been left to observe a “senseless” AFC rule that deprives him the opportunity to field at least four players.

by Nancy Singh September 11, 2016

India’s campaign of AFC U-16 Football Championship to be held in Goa in the coming week has started with a low note. India coach Nicolai Adam has been left to observe a “senseless” AFC rule that deprives him the opportunity to field at least four players.

Abhijit Sarkar, Tamal Naskar, A Hendry and Joysana Singh have all been ruled out of the crucial championship because of tournament guidelines that maintain that any player born between January 1, 2000 and September 1, 2000 will not be eligible, unless they were registered for last year’s AFC Under-16 qualifiers.

Nicolai said “The problem we have is because of some, in my opinion, senseless AFC rules. I cannot use my best squad right now. I have players that were not on the final list for the AFC qualifiers a year ago and AFC rules say if you have not been on that final list of qualifiers, you have to be born on September 1 or later to be in the final list,”

“Abhijit, our talented No 10 for example, does not fulfil the criteria because he was not registered for the qualifiers. He was injured. No coach would have done that. Now, we have a problem. We cannot use him. The team will now be different,” said the German coach.

The former Azerbaijan coach said the rule was harsh on someone like Abhijit because if he was injured during the qualifiers, he wouldn’t be a part of the main event and then wait for possible the under-19 AFC Championship a few years later.

Stating the rule does not make sense.

It is learnt that the AFC introduced the rule to prevent age cheating.

Reamsochung Aimol has also failed to make it to the final squad after failing to recover from an injury he picked up during the three-month tour in Germany.

India are placed in a tough group dubbed as group of death for the championship with first game on 15th September against UAE at the Nehru Stadium in Fatorda.