The Indian 'Rudi' confusion

Thursday was a very active and long day linked to the vacant Indian national team job for me as there was a confusion with the first name of Rudi. I got my first call at 7 a.m. in the morning for a journalist friend of mine who told me that NDTV has just put out a news item that 1990 FIFA World Cup winner Rudi Voeller of Germany is one of the applicants for the India job.

I was still half asleep, but surely I couldn't believe that Voeller would leave his long time job as Director of Sports at Bayer 04 Leverkusen to coach India. And once awake I spoke to friends and contacts to find out if there were any problems at Bayer 04 which could prompt Voeller to leave, but still even if that was the case why would a successful coach and manager leave Germany or for that fact Europe. Someone like Voeller would surely be offered interesting positions here in Europe.

So I spoke to a friend at Bayer 04, who couldn't believe what I said. I send him a YouTube link for the news item and he immediately spoke to Voeller in my name. As I would have expected Voeller had no plans whatsoever to leave Bayer 04, he actually didn't even know that India were looking for a new coach. I got an official statement from the Bundesliga side to clarify things as more and more journalists would get in touch to know what was the story behind such an approach.

Luckily I could clarify that at least Voeller wasn't applying and by afternoon in India even the AIFF confirmed that it had not received any application from Rudi Voeller.

Late that afternoon I would see the name of another candidate - Rudi Krol, a former Dutch international who is currently the coach of South African Premier League side Orlando Pirates, on the Twitter feed of a journalist friend. Then I realised that there could have been a mix-up between the two.

Interestingly it was confirmed late that day that 62 year old Rudolf Jozef Krol, who is nicknamed 'Ruud' or 'Rudi', was amongst the applicants for the job of Indian national coach. But interesting while in India they continue to write Rudi Krol, the Dutch write his name as Ruud Krol.

So the confusion which had started early morning would be cleared by Thursday evening. But surely I will not forget the name Rudi any-time soon, then at least for a few minutes I had hopes of having a German football legend coach India, even though I never thought this was realistically possible.

One also sees how a story can spread across the media, social networks and continents, which is on one side fascinating but also at time could be dangerous.