After successfully bidding for the U-17 World Cup, the All India Football Federation wants to use its domestic U-15 tournament as a platform to identify players for the prestigious event.
"We're successful in getting U-17 World Cup to India. We will use Coca Cola Cup as a platform for identifying the talents for U-17 Cup," AIFF general secretary Kushal Das said today at programme to announce their road map for World Cup in 2017.
Das further said they were keen to qualify for the future editions of the U-17 World Cups and make regular appearances in the age group AFC Championships.
"We hope in years to come the Cup will not just be the tournament to identify talents for the U-17 team but provide a platform for other age group tournaments and future World Cups. We should look at the AFC age group tournaments, qualifying into the (U-17) World Cup in maybe 2019 and 2021."
The AIFF however is still to come out with a comprehensive plan whether to make the Coca Cup in a tier basis to regularly supply players and Das said they would unveil the details in a few months.
"The plans are still being finalised. But what we have decided in principle that the Coca Cola Cup should actually be the platform for identifying talents. We're still working on it how it's going to be done.
"The whole idea is not just the 2017 U-17 World Cup, that's the target for sure. But besides that the Coca Cola Cup should also be the youth development event for all other AFC and World Cup events in the U-16 and U-17 categories. We have a much larger picture in mind. The plans will be unveiled in a few months.
