2012 Nehru Cup: Which nations will participate?

The 2012 edition of the Nehru Cup will kick-off in less then a month's time in New Delhi, but the All India Football Federation has still not named the final line-up of nations to play in the tournament.

One thing is clear that the tournament will be a five nation affair and hosts India will be one of the participating teams. According to sources the AIFF have finalised the four other nations which would be Cameroon, Kenya, Syria and the Maldives with the names of the nations to be made public in the coming days.

Originally the AIFF had send out more then 10 invitations across Asia and Africa. After it became clear that Nigeria wouldn't like to take part, other African nations in Cameroon, Senegal and Kenya were approached with Kenya accepting the invitation quickly while Cameroon took its time to give a positive feedback.

Meanwhile within Asia the nations of Afghanistan, Jordan, Maldives, the Philippines, Syria and Thailand were approached with Jordan, Maldives, the Philippines and Syria all willing to participate. The AIFF then had to decide which two Asian nations it wanted in the tournament. By then the Philippines backed out, so it was Syria and the Maldives in the end.

Surely Syria were opponents of India in 2007 and 2009 finals, but the question remains if the west Asians would be appropriate to have in the tournament with all those political problems in their country.