India to host Nepal on March 12 at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium in Sajusarai for the FIFA World Cup 2018 preliminary joint qualification round 1.

The matches would be played on a home and away format and India first host Nepal this thursday while the return leg is slated to be played in Nepal on March 17.

Asia have only 4 Slots in the 32-nation competition despite being the largest Continent in world.  46 nations are playing in Qualification of the 2018 World Cup that is to be held in Russia.  Apart from the 4 straight slots, there is scope for a 5th nation to qualify subject to a victory in play-offs against hopeful nations from other continents.

Clear favourites from the Asia would be Australia, Japan and South Korea. Iran, who exhibited a fine performance in the last edition of the competition would also be a tough competitor to the finals slot.

Notwithstanding the sloppy be the odds, Indian supporters look forward to any bleak chances that the team gets to qualify. However public awareness about this match has been surprisingly low.

Indian football has always been overshadowed by the glory and glamour of Cricket, and with the ongoing Cricket World Cup, this match has sunk to the bottom of priority list of the media in the country. There has been no coverage whatsoever on these upcoming matches on the part of the Indian media and the masses are yet to know about it.

What is more horrifying for the future of Football in the country is, no private television channel is broadcasting the match on Thursday. According to sources, AIFF has approached many privately owned Television Channels for covering the match, only to be declined by all.

“You keep finding reason during world cup why India with 1 billion population is not playing world cup, but cant you guys force Government and AIFF 4 years before world cup so that they work on those problems?” asked Priyanshu, an ardent football fan from India on a Facebook page. “We are not asking 1 hour debate for India’s match but at-least show something about it so that people can know that our nation playing,” he added.

So, our voice is with Priyanshu and many more fans who badly want to see their team perform in World Cup Qualifier Match and let us raise our voices against these incompetency shown by Indian Media and Football Authority.

Join us to tell them to take the necessary action to broadcast and bring out media coverage for India vs Nepal World Cup Qualifier Match on 12th March and 17th March. Let us, make our fight for Indian Football grow stronger.

Thanks in advance for taking action. 

Sports-nova