AIFF Masters program with Cadiz CF of La Liga going nowhere fast?

During a time when when everything was behind closed doors, AIFF opened the doors for aspiring sports management student to a golden opportunity to learn the ins and outs of how things operate at a top flight club. Behind the scenes  on an operational, administrative, logistics, PR and basically anything to do with running of a football club general level that is not directly pertaining to any part of the backroom staff role.  

As good as it sounds on paper things are not as rosy as it seems although new information being brought to light might change certain perception. The biggest problem is that there has been no updates on their Instagram page for about one and a half years. There last prospectus brochure was published for last season (as afar as I could find with a quick google search) and when I tried to click the enrol button on their website to enrol for their program, that was also non functional.

For what the management program stands for, top class exposure abroad for future stakeholders of Indian football. This is not a good look and makes the collaboration with Cadiz CF like a pipe dream that only seemed to be on paper but never really took off. One does not even know whether the program is permanently closed or not or this is just a temporary blip in the proceedings ? A country which has not been able to maximize their full potential due to being marred by a host of issues and with better administration necessary for any hope of a turnaround, its future being up in the air is another symptom of the ailments that has kept the Blue Tigers down. 

There could be two potential reasons for AIFF Masters to tank, one is the more boring and mundane reason of it being a niche course which is way to expensive according to Indian Education standard and is still a relatively new experiment. The more gossipy and tabloid like reason that should clearly be taken with a grain of salt is that somewhere in an online forum, it is theorized that AIFF masters is being phased out. Most recent administration does not want to carry on a project that was the brainchild of their predecessors and do not believe in it. 

The only real loss here is for those who wanted to take Indian Football forward and the supporters who could have found a ray of hope if ambitious such as this were given more backing. We may never know Indian Football might have lost out on their very own Vinai Venkatesh but now we can only speculate the what-ifs.

Cover Credits - AIFF Official