How India can qualify for the FIFA World Cup

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With the 2022 FIFA World Cup ending, football fans in the nation are eager to see India qualify for the next edition of the World Cup, and questions about the measures necessary to achieve this have also been raised in the Lok Sabha. The 2026 edition is to be jointly hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the US, and will include 48 teams, which is 16 teams higher than the number of teams who were present at the 2022 edition.

This also means that the Asian Football Federation will now receive 8 slots, which is almost double the current count. However, to qualify India needs to better the quality of its team which is currently ranked 19 in Asia, behind teams such as Vietnam, Lebanon and the Kyrgiz Republic. With a global ranking of 106, it is unlikely that India can qualify with its current team, though North Korea qualified to the 2010 edition ranked 105, and the lowest ranked team in this year’s event was Ghana, ranked 61.

In terms of performances, India has beaten teams such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, the Maldives, and Nepal, since 2021. However, it has lost to better teams such as Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE, who defeated India 6-0, and hence needs a competitive upgrade to qualify for the World Cup.

The football administration had also been embroiled in trouble with the All-India Football Federation (AIFF) recently suspended by FIFA for “undue third-party influence”, after the Supreme Court appointed a Committee of Administrators (CoA) due to persistent issues. Subsequently, former Indian captain Baichung Bhutia stood for elections to the role of the president, which he lost. Hence, Indian football needs to root out the systemic issues that plague the administration if the team is to make a mark on a global stage.

India needs to also harness the young talent in the nation, which has been described by former FIFA president Sepp Blatter as a “sleeping giant of football”. So far, clubs like Manchester City, Athletico Madrid and Sevilla have either launched academies or announced partnerships to hone youngtalent and promote grassroots level development of football.

Finally, football needs to capture the imagination of the entire nation, not just a few pockets like the North-East, Kerala, Goa and Bengal, to spur the national team on. While India is expected to develop into amajor football nation eventually, qualification to the 2026 World Cup may be a long shot.