Not football, India has a higher budget allocation for equestrian, yachting, tennis

In a major financial revelation by The Indian Express, it has been reported that the budget allocated to the AIFF has been reduced considerably over the past 4 years. As per the latest financial grants for every sport, 5 crores has been allocated to the Indian football federation for the 2022-2023 period.

It has also been reported that there are numerous other sports which have higher budget allocations as of today. Some of them include athletics (Rs 30 crore), badminton, boxing, hockey, shooting (all Rs 24 crore ), archery (Rs 15.85 crore) and weightlifting (Rs 11 crore), tennis (Rs 5.5 crore), equestrian (Rs 6 crore) and yachting (Rs 5.2 crore).

The most glaring statistic is that the funding has been cut by 85% in just 4 years. From 30 crores in 2019-2020 to 5 crores just 3 years later is a massive dip in itself.

The key issue in this regard is the dip in performance by the national team. The Indian senior football team has not performed well over the past few international tournaments including the World Cup and Asian Cup qualifiers.

Failure to beat lower-ranked teams along with a minimal promise of better future performances has resulted in the government aiming to shift its focus to grassroots development instead.

Another ironic issue is that the participation of the Indian men's and women's football teams at the Asian Games has not been confirmed by the Indian Olympic Association as yet. The reason is that the IOA sees both the senior football teams as incapable of gaining considerable success in terms of winning medals.

It remains to be seen whether there is a considerable increase in AIFF funding over the course of the upcoming year in case of improved performances and results.