The raging debate on the Indian Super League's (ISL) utility in shaping Indian football's future is nothing new. Former Brazilian great and FC Goa coach Zico often criticised the tournament's purpose and called to include more Indians in the starting line-up.
But the ISL, which now has backing from the Asian Football Confederation, and a host of former stars, has failed to nurture young players.
"Now you know why India never does well at the international competitions. The main focus for me is to see more youngsters playing in both ISL and I-League," said national head coach Stephen Constantine.
The junior players are still being ignored by the clubs. Five of the 10 ISL franchisee teams have not yet picked up any U-21 boys ahead of the player draft, scheduled to be held in Mumbai on Sunday. However, every team has to finally pick two U-21 players as per the tournament rules.
Defending champions Atletico de Kolkata has not retained any U-21 player, but according to the tournament rules, teams are supposed to retain a maximum of three to fill up the development player quota.
As a part of its U-21 quota, the Chennai franchise has retained capped player Jerry Lalrinzuala and Anirudh Thapa.
Bengaluru FC has retained Nishu Kumar, who is representing the U-23 team here, and Malsawmzuala.
Prashanth Karuthadathkuni is lucky to be on Kerala Blasters list while Mumbai City FC has Rakesh Oram retained for the next season.
India's 0-2 defeat against Syria in their AFC U-23 qualifying Group C opening match here at the Al Sadd Stadium on Wednesday also showed that AIFF's grass-root events are a mere eye-wash.
The 54-year-old Constantine, who is guiding the U-23 team at the Asian tournament here, however, believed two separate leagues will open up more opportunities for the juniors.
"I-League and ISL provides 10 more teams at the top level for the young Indian players. It'll hopefully fix the problem that we've in this competition where we've boys who don't have international experience," he added.
But with the entry of two new clubs Bengaluru FC and Jamshedpur FC in the ISL's next edition, there was hope the teams will offer more entries to some of the promising juniors, but the player draft does not seem to give a very positive picture of the tournament's role on the players' development.
"The U-23 squad has one or two players who may have played just couple of matches in the domestic competition as most clubs don't repose faith in them. They can only get experience by playing in different events. This is something that needs to be addressed," said Constantine, who had his first stint as national coach in 2002.
"What'll happen to the U-19 boys? What're the U-17 players going to do after the FIFA World Cup? It's the question that we need to sit and find the answers. If we don't use these juniors, the money that we're investing on the foreign and Indian coaches and development programmes will go waste," said Constantine.
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