Is AIFF TD Rob Baan correct in criticizing Indian football?

Dutchman Robert 'Rob' Baan was very critical about Indian football at the FICCI GOAL 2013 convention on Friday morning, which was widely covered by the national media and surprisingly raised a few eyebrows.

If Rob Baan's statements come as a surprise to you, then these only remind me of want our former national coach Bob Houghton said about the state of Indian football in Qatar at the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. This wasn't to the liking of AIFF officials, which in the end led to Bob having to leave.

I personally felt that morning that 69 year old Rob Baan is getting frustrated with the system or lack of system within Indian football. He had been brought in to prepare a roadmap which he did and has been titled 'Lakshya 2022', but there seems to be lack of funding and will to implement the very basics for improvement within Indian football.

Amongst other things Baan said about Lakshya's funding problem, "IMG-Reliance says that they are not able to generate funds but I say, if the plan is good, funds will come."

Going on he said, "There is no national team training centre, no elite academies, no budget as far as implementing the Lakshya 2022 project is concerned."

And further disgust about the situation came out when Rob Baan and later on Director of Regional Academies Scott O'Donell spoke about age cheating in the AIFF Football Festival, which is intended to be the scouting platform for young Indian talent for the AIFF Regional Academies besides an Under-12 Elite Academy, which could be the core team for the 2017 FIFA Under-17 World Cup, if India is given the right to host it.

We all know that all is not good within Indian football, but as things stand today we can only hope it gets better in the years to come...