New Delhi: Football is considered the most popular sport across the globe, and even in India, the sport is constantly rising in popularity.
As a result, fans have started to turn up for the Indian football team’s matches in numbers and provide them with the much-needed support they were missing.
Team India is enjoying a great run with their Croatian coach, Igor Stimac, at the moment, winning two major international trophies in 2023, in the form of the Intercontinental Cup and the SAFF Championship, in the span of 15 days.
Everyone is appreciating the genius of Igor for the rise of Indian football. However, in a shocking revelation made by Indian Express, Igor seems to be consulting Delhi-based astrologer Bhupesh Sharma for the selection of the team.
When every other football coach selects their playing XI based on the player’s form, experience and ability, the Indian coach seems to be basing his selection on the stars calculation of his players done by Astrologer Bhupesh Sharma.
The newspaper claims to have unearthed series of conversations between the duo in May-June 2022, where the duo deliberated upon names of likely players and ‘picked’ them on basis of good fortune.
Sharma ‘recommended’ the list of probable squads and then the final team was ‘shortlisted’ based on the star alignment of the players. Some of the astrologer’s comments read like, “He will have a good day,” “Tell him not to be overconfident,” “Will have a below-average day,” etc., in front of the player’s names.
Astrologer Bhupesh and coach Igor Stimac reportedly got into this ‘prophesy based selection’ on June 9, 2022, about 48 hours before the crucial clash against Afghanistan in the Asian Cup qualifiers, by the then-head of All India Football Federation (AIFF), Mr Kushal Das.
The daily reports that Mr Das accepted this fact and even admitted paying over 12 lakhs for Bhupesh Sharma’s two-month stint with the Indian National Squad.
Notably, AIFF has sent a show cause notice to Igor Stimac for his ‘indecent comments’ regarding his blunt approach towards the Indian football.
