There’s a query the All India Soccer Federation (AIFF) must reply earlier than anybody begins debating whether or not Ranjit Bajaj ought to lead India’s U-15 staff.
What, precisely, was the standards?
There’s something basically unusual concerning the Ranjit Bajaj-Bibiano Fernandes saga that goes past the AIFF’s resolution making.
It’s this: why is the staff supervisor figuring out, or publicly difficult, the footballing philosophy of a nationwide staff within the first place?
That query has been misplaced amid the noise round Bajaj’s appointment, rejection and subsequent U-turn.
Teaching credentials
Let’s begin with the apparent. Ranjit Bajaj is just not a professional national-team coach as per the requirements.
His contribution to Indian soccer is actual. His work in grassroots soccer is important. Minerva Academy has change into one of many nation’s most profitable youth soccer setups, with nationwide and worldwide event successes and an extended listing of gamers who’ve progressed into the Indian system.
Bajaj deserves credit score for constructing that ecosystem and for relentlessly pushing youth improvement into the dialog.
However constructing an academy is just not the identical factor as teaching a nationwide staff. And proudly owning an academy is actually not the identical factor as being its head coach.
That distinction issues as a result of Bajaj’s public expression of his appointment as Supervisor of India’s U-15 squad and that of Bibiano Fernandes’ as coach was not merely that the AIFF had did not seek the advice of him. It was that the 2 males had basically completely different footballing philosophies.
Bajaj described his most well-liked strategy as aggressive, high-pressing and attacking. He characterised Fernandes’ strategy as extra pragmatic and counter-attacking, and argued that placing the 2 collectively can be a “preparation for catastrophe”.
But when Bajaj is the staff supervisor, why take the complete accountability for figuring out how India U-15s ought to play?
is that not what the top coach is for?
A staff supervisor in soccer is mostly answerable for the operational facet of the staff: logistics, coordination, administration, participant welfare and guaranteeing that the soccer employees can operate successfully. The top coach, in the meantime, is the particular person answerable for the staff’s footballing id, tactical strategy, coaching methodology, choice inside the technical framework and match preparation.
The precise division of duties can fluctuate between federations and groups, however the basic precept shouldn’t be interchanged: The coach coaches.
So when a staff supervisor expresses displeasure over an appointment as a result of he doesn’t agree with the top coach’s footballing philosophy, the apparent follow-up query is: what authority is a supervisor anticipated to have over enjoying philosophy?
And if Bajaj was anticipated to have none, why was this supposed incompatibility apparently such a deal-breaker?
That takes us to the a lot greater subject with AIFF’s resolution.
A supervisor’s {qualifications}
The federation would do a world of excellent by clarifying a supervisor’s credentials and position. Not with a press release about youth improvement. Not with an inventory of junior trophies gained.
However with a response to this: What’s the choice criterion for nationwide junior squads?
As a result of in terms of teaching credentials, the Bajaj’s comparability with Bibiano Fernandes is just not a really perfect one in line with the roles they’ve performed by means of their careers.
Fernandes is an AFC Professional-licensed coach who has spent years working inside India’s youth national-team system. AIFF itself described him in 2025 as some of the profitable coaches within the historical past of Indian males’s youth groups.
He had already led India to a few successive AFC U-16/U-17 Asian Cups between 2018 and 2023. He has gained the SAFF U-15 title twice, in 2017 and 2019, the SAFF U-17 title in 2022, and the SAFF U-19 title in 2025. By October 2025, AIFF recorded 5 SAFF age-group titles underneath his management.
And this is not merely a coach with a set of regional trophies.
In December 2025, Fernandes’ India U-17 facet certified for the 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup by beating Iran 2-1 in a outcome ESPN described as a significant achievement given India’s historic issue towards Iran.
Fernandes then took that staff into the 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup, the place India confronted Australia and Uzbekistan, two international locations with significantly deeper youth soccer ecosystems. His credentials subsequently aren’t theoretical. They’ve been constructed by means of years of precise national-team teaching.
Now put Bajaj’s résumé alongside that.
The 47-year outdated has not coached a national-team simply but. And there’s no public file of him having obtained an AFC teaching license.
That doesn’t imply Bajaj is aware of nothing about soccer.
It solely signifies that data of soccer and {qualifications} to teach a nationwide staff usually are not the identical factor.
However did Bajaj not coach Minerva?
That is one other vital distinction that tends to vanish within the mythology across the Minerva Academy.
Bajaj based and runs the profitable academy. He’s the face of the challenge. His imaginative and prescient, cash, recruitment and organisational management have clearly performed an infinite position in its improvement.
That stated, he doesn’t run the academy all by himself, however does so by working with a staff {of professional} coaches.
Minerva’s personal web site particularly highlights Technical Director Surinder Singh and Pradhyum Reddy as Professional-licensed coaches and credit their strategies and footballing philosophy for the academy’s improvement.
Minerva even really useful the pair to assist coach the Philippines U-17 ladies’s staff as a result of they had been Professional-licensed and aligned with the academy’s enjoying philosophy.
Transfermarkt’s present employees itemizing equally identifies Bajaj because the proprietor, whereas Surinder Singh is listed as technical director. That distinction is vital.
Bajaj can completely say: “That is the footballing philosophy I constructed at Minerva.”
He can say: “That is how I consider younger Indian footballers needs to be developed.”
He can level to Minerva’s outcomes as proof that his mannequin deserves consideration.
However that also doesn’t mechanically make him the one who needs to be drawing up India’s tactical plan. Not except the AIFF says so.
And if the argument is that Bajaj has been deeply concerned in Minerva’s teaching choices regardless of not being the licensed coach, then that raises an much more vital query: Why have coaches at Minerva wanted skilled licenses if these licenses abruptly do not matter when the identical soccer philosophy is transferred to a nationwide staff?
The manager-coach drawback
That is the place the AIFF’s unique appointment wants analyzing.
The federation chosen an skilled, pro-licensed national-team coach as head coach. Then it chosen a profitable academy proprietor as staff supervisor.
Then the supervisor rejected the association as a result of he disagreed with the top coach’s footballing philosophy.
Then, after experiences that Fernandes had declined, Bajaj stated he was able to take cost himself.
At that time, the job titles begin changing into meaningless. If Bajaj’s position is solely managerial, he wouldn’t have to approve the coach’s ways.
If a supervisor seeks a say within the ways, then she or he is successfully functioning as a technical authority.
If he’s the technical authority, why was he appointed supervisor and never the top coach?
And if the AIFF now believes he ought to really coach the staff, what modified about his {qualifications} between August 6 and August 8?
India has spent years complaining concerning the lack of certified coaches.
The reply can’t concurrently be that teaching {qualifications} matter enormously and that, when a sufficiently distinguished persona comes alongside, they abruptly change into non-compulsory.
Bajaj has one thing that almost all Indian soccer coaches don’t: an infinite direct-to-fan communication platform.
He can put out a video, mobilise supporters and get an institutional to behave inside minutes. That’s highly effective.
And social media is superb at rewarding certainty. Teaching is superb at exposing it.
You generally is a sensible soccer administrator, academy builder, expertise identifier, communicator or visionary with out being one of the best coach within the room.
And there may be nothing diminishing about that. The truth is, Indian soccer wants folks like Bajaj.
However Indian soccer additionally wants coaches. Certified coaches.
Coaches who’ve spent years studying the way to construction classes, develop gamers, analyse opponents, handle completely different levels of improvement and translate a philosophy into an precise coaching setting.
The place does the issue lie?
That is in the end not about Bajaj’s philosophy or Minerva, or whether or not Bibiano’s soccer is aesthetically pleasing.
It’s about whether or not the AIFF intends to streamline every place in a junior national-team setup with definitive roles.
If Fernandes is the top coach, let Fernandes coach. If Bajaj is the supervisor, let him handle.
If the federation needs Bajaj’s grassroots experience, use it. Make him a part of the event construction.
Let him advise on expertise pathways. Let him contribute to the broader youth programme. There’s loads he may deliver to Indian soccer with out pretending that each precious soccer persona must change into a national-team coach.
And if the AIFF genuinely believes Bajaj needs to be the top coach, then it ought to clarify why. What technical standards did they used? Who else was thought of?
Why did the federation promote for a head coach after which find yourself in a scenario the place the web is split about whether or not the staff supervisor ought to take over?
The irony is that Bajaj has spent years demanding precisely this sort of accountability from the AIFF. Now, the federation will do properly to make clear the identical to the fraternity at massive.
As a result of if it doesn’t, this employees choice is not a daring new mannequin for Indian youth soccer. It’s merely one other AIFF appointment the place the designations had been determined earlier than the duties had been.
(The opinions expressed on this article are solely these of the writer and don’t essentially mirror the views or positions of publication)
