For a few days, some posts have been circulating widely on Facebook about why India, who qualified in 1950, did not participate in the FIFA World Cup.
These posts blame Pandit Nehru for India’s non-participation. This post also alleges that FIFA did not allow India to compete because they did not have boots.
But we found out that these arguments are wrong. Let’s see what really made India miss the 1950 FIFA World Cup.
Propaganda
The text in the above post is as follows:
“All the stadiums named after Nehru who destroyed Indian football should be changed.
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If you want to know why 11 people are not getting to play in the world cup from India with 145 crore people, you need to know the football history of India.
Nehru and the Congress party should know the cruelty done to the Indian players who were the best football team in the world…!! This is just one of the cruelties Nehru did to Indians…!!!
The greatest irony is that most of the stadiums in India today are named after Nehru, his daughter and grandson…! Time to change this is over!!!
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Do you know the sad story of India’s football team having to withdraw from the world cup football without money to buy boots while Indian Prime Minister Nehru was traveling in a special plane with his dog….???
The Indian football team, which was playing the 1948 London Olympics, had to withdraw from the World Cup without enough money to buy shoes. The Indian government has remained silent on the matter. It is important to mention that all these activities were under the control of the government then…!!
-1948 – In Olympics some Indian players wore socks only and others played barefoot….!!!!
Remember that Nehru’s clothes were dry-cleaned in Paris at that time…!!!
‘That was the (elite) Nehru who blackmailed the great Gandhiji and became the prime minister’.
Also know the standard of Indian football team then. India drew 1-1 with current World Cup winners France in the first half. India lost by a goal scored by France in the last minute of the second half.
A standing ovation was given to the players of the Indian team who showed a great performance with applause from the crowd.
After this, the team qualified for the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.
But at the last minute the government decided not to send the team…!!! Because of that, FIFA has informed India that playing football with bare feet has been banned….!!!@
The Indian government told the organizers that India was a poor country and they could not afford to come there.
FIFA also said that they want a team as capable as India to come to the World Cup.
FIFA has announced that it will bear the travel and accommodation expenses of all the Indian players.
But Nehru’s government did not send the team. At that time the association was under the government…..!!! Later it was in the hands of politicians…???
The morale of the team, which is preparing for the World Cup with great hope, has broken down…!!!
Since then India has yet to qualify for the FIFA World Cup…!!!
If the government was not ready to provide the required boots to the football team players then, today it is only politically motivated…!!!
At that time Indian team captain Shailendranath Manna was one of the top 10 captains in the world….!!!
A few years later, he told people the story of this scam that ruined Indian football…!!!
During the subsequent Congress rule, Indian sports became a mere arena for political leaders to corrupt. The standard of various sports fields in India was going down….!!!
Isn’t it ironic that today, 3 of the 7 major football stadiums in India are named after Nehru…???
A stadium is named after daughter Indira Gandhi…!!!
When the FIFA U-17 World Cup was held in India, foreign players must have felt that Jawaharlal Nehru was perhaps India’s greatest footballer.
Today, 70 years later, Mr. No one knows Shailendra Nath Manna….!!!????
Do you also know that Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who ruled after that, used to get drinking water daily from Chashmashahi in Srinagar….!!!!
Wherever they were in India they used to deliver this water daily by plane…..!!!
The truth is that at that time there were hundreds of villages in India that had to walk ten to twenty kilometers for a pot of water…!!!”
The post makes many allegations against the Nehru-Gandhi family. But in this report we are looking at the argument made with India and the World Cup. We are examining the argument that India could not play in the World Cup because the Indian government did not provide boots to the players. Let’s see how true this claim is.
fact finding
First we investigated the real reason why India did not participate in the 1950 World Cup. Many Asian countries withdrew from the World Cup held in Brazil in 1950. After this, India qualified for the World Cup.
But India did not participate in the World Cup. But the argument that the team did not participate because the Indian team did not have the boots to play in is wrong. In an article by Joydeep Basu in The Scroll, the real reason for India’s withdrawal is lack of time for training and lack of resources. This matter is AIFF. It was stated in a press release issued in 1950.
To read the article – The Scroll | Archived
But Joydeep also writes that the real reason India could not participate was because of AIFF decisions. The Indian team not wearing the boot was as per their wish. This point becomes clear if we examine these evidences.
In a press conference after a match between India and France in 1948, when journalists asked Indian football captain Thalimere Aoev about playing without boots, he said:In India we play football and you play bootball.”
To read the article – Olympics | Archived
In the London Olympics against France, only 8 people went on the field without boots. Everyone else was booted.
This competition was held in the month of July. In the trial matches held in Calcutta in May, the Indian team played with boots on. The Indian Express news published on May 7, 1948 reports that the players put on their boots because the field was muddy due to rain.
So the Indian team played as per their wish with or without boots. It is wrong that the Indian football team could not participate in the World Cup due to lack of boots.
Conclusion
As alleged in the posts, the Indian football team did not participate in the World Cup football matches in Brazil in 1950 because of the negligence of Pandit Nehru and the Indian government. The AIFF stated at the time that India did not participate in the 1950 FIFA World Cup due to lack of time for training and lack of resources. The Indian team played on the left even after putting on their boots as per their wish.
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Title:What was the real reason why India did not participate in the FIFA World Cup in 1950?
Fact Check By: K. Mukundan
Result: Misleading
