All India Football Federation (AIFF) is on a mission to change the scenario of the country's futsal. The AIFF’s desire to develop the country’s futsal has come up, especially after the national futsal team's exit from their group in the recently-concluded Asian Cup qualifiers held in Tajikistan. India lost to Tajikistan, Palestine, and Myanmar in their first international competition. 

Head of the mission of the Indian futsal team in the Asian Cup qualifiers Ranjit Bajaj explained, “Tajikistan started playing futsal in 1996. They have already a professional league. They have more than 40 specially made futsal pitches. Their clubs rope in top-quality foreign players. Even, Myanmar which started playing futsal for the last two decades has a professional league and in a bid to strengthen their national team, they have an experienced national coach whereas the Asian Cup qualifier was our first official competitive tournament."

"Still, we earned accolades from the top teams like Tajikistan and Kazakhstan which are seventh and eighth, respectively."

However, Bajaj simultaneously revealed that the AIFF is intensely keen to develop the futsal in India. Bajaj explained, “The AIFF president Kalayn Chaubey himself is very keen to develop the futsal in the country. I am going to submit a report to him soon where I will mention a couple of suggestions. He also believes that developing futsal will make an attractive and commercially viable project. So I believe he will take initiative soon.” 

The futsal in India does not have the least infrastructural support so far. The Indian team had to train on a basketball court as a part of their preparation for the Asian Cup qualifiers. Then they did not have the ball which is used in futsal. The Indian team also did not get the scope to prepare, playing against the tough futsal teams before the competition except for the only exposure trip to Bahrain. 

But it is not that futsal lacks the enthusiasm in India. Sixteen clubs including Mohammedan Sporting had already participated in the national championship last season. Participation of 16 state futsal champion teams in the national championship means each state has at least 10 futsal teams which ultimately reveals at least more than 150 futsal teams across the country play futsal professionally. 

The AIFF is already mulling over the introduction of a futsal league along with the national championship next year and also has started planning to develop the infrastructure.