Indian Football: Why AIFF can't telecast the Bahrain friendly

In a sad piece of news, yesterday All Indian Football Federation notified that the Indian Men's National Team's upcoming friendlies in Bahrain will not be telecasted in India owing to lack of support & subsequent technical feasibility.

The release stated, "Despite our best efforts in working with the Bahrain FA to live telecast and stream the International Friendlies against Bahrain and Belarus, owing to lack of support & subsequent technical feasibility, it won't be possible to telecast the matches in India."

This issue has disheartened and hit the Indian football fraternity hard. As it has left the fans in dismay.

The Bridge can exclusively confirm that AIFF has sent a letter to the Bahrain FA today informing the former's inability to broadcast the friendly.

A source keeping track of the development confirmed that the federation has sighted detailed reason for the inability in the letter.

The letter states that AIFF is unable to arrange the broadcast as Bahrain TV is failing to uplink the live feed on any of the satellites available over India or send the signal via an RTMP link to the AIFF. Besides the local broadcaster is also unable to provide English graphics and English commentary.

After five long months, the Blue Tigers are scheduled to be back in action, later tonight.

However, luck doesn't seem to be in their favour. As Igor Stimac had to select the squad leaving out key players like Sunil Chhetri, Sahal Abdul Samad, Udanta Singh, and Suresh Wangjam due to injuries.

Thereafter due to some unfortunate VISA issues the Indian contingent had to travel to Bahrain with only 18 players missing Goalkeeper Amrinder Singh, defender Chinglensana Singh and Akash Mishra and midfielders Anirudh Thapa, Brandon Fernandes, Aniket Yadav and Bipin Singh.

Thus this additional heartbreak of last-minute broadcast cancellation despite serious efforts from the federation further worsens the situation for the Indian football community.