Assam Football Renews Ambitions With FIFA World Cup Qualifiers Match In Guwahati, Says AFA Official Sangrang Brahma

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International football returns to Assam after a gap of four years as its major city Guwahati hosts the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qualifiers match between India and Afghanistan at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium on March 26.

While the match is crucial to India's ambition of reaching the third round of FIFA World Cup Qualifiers in the continent for the first time, the Indo-Afghan match is part of the Assam Football Association's (AFA) grand plan of establishing the state's rightful place in Indian football as one of the football hubs.

"Assam has always been a football hub," says Sangrang Brahma, secretary of AFA. "The love for the game is no different than it is in other north-eastern states but the perception has changed over the years as we don't have enough local players coming up at the national level as Parthib Gogoi, Durga Boro and Halicharan Narazary are only to name a few."

AFA, which saw key administrative changes at last year's association election under its president Naba Kumar Doley, is looking to make ground-level changes to overhaul the structure of football in the state to a more professional setup and on par with AIFF's requirement. Hosting an international football match in Guwahati is just the beginning of it.

Dedicated football stadium in Guwahati and Co-hosting Durand Cup again

"Hosting an international football match is important to attract the football-loving crowd of Assam and to make them feel connected with the national team," says Sangrang, a librarian-turn-football administrator. "But the match is just a part of bigger plans. Assam's CM (Himanta Biswa Sarma) has already sanctioned a 600-crore project to demolish and reconstruct the old Nehru Stadium into a dedicated football stadium."

While the 2-3 year project for a refurbished football stadium will see the seating capacity increase from 15,000 to 25,000 with other world-class facilities at the venue, Sangrang also revealed that Kokrajhar are on the verge of co-hosting Durand Cup for back-to-back seasons.

Kokrajhar, biggest town in Bodoland Territorial Region, hosted nine of the Durand Cup matches last year and will be playing a bigger role as co-host in this year's edition, scheduled in July-August.

"We have had two meetings with the army officials, who have also inspected the venue and were happy with the arrangement in place. Only Kokrajhar will be co-hosting Durand Cup matches this time around and we have requested for one semifinal match as well," says Sangrang, who was in complete charge of the Kokrajhar leg of matches of Durand Cup last year.

Sangrang, who was backed to the general secretary post of AFA by football-loving leader of Bodoland Pramod Boro, further added that the work can't be just limited to such tournaments in Assam as efforts are underway to develop football in the state on a grassroots level.