Kalyan Chaubey, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) president, will speak to the ISL organisers Football Sports Development Limited and the clubs on Tuesday about the release of players for the Hangzhou Asian Games scheduled to begin later this month.
And if the clubs refuse to budge from their stand of not releasing the players, AIFF will send a new-look side or withdraw the team from the competition.
“Yes if it comes to that, we will pull out. However, we have not lost hope yet,” somebody in the know of things said.
Either way, it will be a big face-loss for the federation as the AIFF president had to use all his resources to convince the sports ministry to give the green light for the men’s and women’s teams’ participation in the continental mega event.
Placed in Group A, India play China on September 19, Bangladesh two days later and Myanmar on September 24.
Senior AIFF officials in a meeting on Monday asked Chaubey to speak to the clubs and find a way to end the impasse. The deadline for submitting the final squad to the organisers is Friday and the AIFF is clearly racing against time.
The AIFF, it has been learnt, is keeping a second-string ready. If that happens, the likes of Sunil Chhetri, Sandesh Jhingan and Anwar Ali will not be travelling to Hangzhou.
The players, who featured in the King’s Cup, will be back with their respective clubs by Wednesday. Head coach Igor Stimac is expected to be in New Delhi.
The clubs are not ready to release players since the competition is not part of the Fifa calendar. So they are under no obligation to release players. FSDL, which runs the ISL along with AIFF, has already released the fixture for the 10th edition with the opener slated for September 21.
Also, teams like Mumbai City Mohun Bagan and Odisha FC have their continental cup matches early next week.
