Bhaichung Bhutia resigned from the All India Football Federation (AIFF) technical committee protesting against the decision to appoint FC Goa manager Manolo Marquez as the Indian men’s football team head coach bypassing the IM Vijayan-headed committee.
The 55-year-old Marquez will perform the dual role of managing the national team as well as FC Goa for the 2024-25 season before taking up the India job on a full-time basis.
President Kalyan Chaubey proposed the Spaniard’s name and the executive committee passed it. Vijayan was not present in Saturday’s meeting. Interestingly, in the first media release, the AIFF stated: “IM Vijayan attended the meeting via video conferencing”.
The AIFF had formed a special committee to decide on Igor Stimac’s successor. Stimac was sacked on June 17.
“I opposed the constitution of the special committee. The technical committee decides on the national team and the executive committee ratifies it. But today (Saturday), it was the president (Chaubey) who forwarded Manolo’s name. Then what for do they have a technical committee?” Bhutia, the former India captain, told The Telegraph.
“The committee was not kept in the loop when Stimac was removed and now when the new coach comes we were again kept in the dark,” Bhutia added.
A senior official said it was surprising that Bhutia was upset. “Bhaichung, Climax (Lawrence), Shabbir Ali and Pinky Bompal Magar attended today’s meeting. They were told that Manolo would be the coach. Then what’s the fuss all about?” But then Saturday’s was an executive committee meeting.
Bhutia was the technical committee chairman when Stephen Constantine became the national team coach in 2015.
Marquez has been coaching in India since 2020. He was with Hyderabad FC (2020-23), before joining FC Goa in 2023. He guided Hyderabad FC to the ISL Cup title in 2021-22. Manolo is credited for showing faith in the likes of Liston Colaco and Chinglensana Singh during their Hyderabad FC days.
The executive committee also appointed Kerala’s Anilkumar Prabhakaran as the new secretary-general. After Shaji Prabhakaran was sacked in November last year, M Satyanarayan took over as interim secretary general.
