FIFA chief's visit will boost Indian football: Dasmunsi

New Delhi, Jan 3 (UNI) FIFA president Sepp Blatter will visit the country soon to lend his helping hand in reviving Indian football fortunes, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) said today.

Addressing a press conference here, AIFF president Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said the FIFA chief would visit India in the first quarter of this year.

Mr Blatter is expected to officially launch a new initiative during his visit.

Earlier in December, Mr Dasmunsi had led a high level AIFF delegation at FIFA headquarters in Zurich and discussed with Mr Blatter about the ''strategic planning for the sustained growth of football in India.'' FIFA and AFC have agreed to help India by offering a wide range of resources available to them to provide a solid foundation across the board, including infrastructure, competitions and business development in India.

''India is a country with an amazing potential for growth of the beautiful game,'' Mr Blatter had said in an official statement after meeting Mr Dasmunsi-led delegation.

''It is home to 20 per cent of the world's population and deserves particular attention from world football's governing body.

Therefore, FIFA, in conjunction with the AFC Vision Asia project, is developing a special initiative for the future of Indian football.'' Claiming that this year would be important for Indian football, Mr Dasmunsi said the AIFF would arrange more friendly matches against other countries to give exposure to the national squad this year. Last year, India played only one friendly match against Hong Kong.

Though refusing to buy the notion that plunging rankings in FIFA chart reflects on Indian football standrad, he said, winning more international matches against higher-ranked sides would take care of the rankings.

Starting at 126th at the beginning of last year, India hit rockbottom occupying 157th at the end of the year among 206 FIFA members and 32nd among 46 Asian countries.

India also lost all their six matches of Asian Cup qualifiers including against unfancied Yemen.

Mr Dasmunsi admitted that the senior side was not doing well at present, but took heart from the performance of youth team.

''The senior squad is not performing upto expectations, but youth team's performance was an encouraging sign for our future,'' he said in an obvious reference to India's creditable performance in the Under-20 AFC tournament held recently at Kolkata and Bagalore.

The AIFF president also hoped more corporate houses would come forward to help Indian clubs.

''I hope at least six to eight corporate houses would come forward by 2008 to sponsor top clubs in the country and that will be a big boost to professionalising the NFL,'' he said.

UNI