All India Football Federation has requested its Lebanese counterpart to change the dates of their World Cup qualifying matches so that they do not clash with the first professional league scheduled to start on September 30.
India and Lebanon have been slated to face each other in the first round of qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup to be held in South Africa but the dates - October 8 and 28 - have put the start of the 'I League' in jeopardy.
"We have written to the Lebanon Federation asking them to see if the dates of the match can be changed," AIFF General Secretary Alberto Colaco told PTI in New Delhi on Tuesday.
He said the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) rules allow the dates of the qualifiers to be changed by mutual consent of the competing teams.
The dates of the matches of the Goa Professional League, which has already kicked off, have also been postponed.
The AIFF top brass today convened a meeting of the local organising committees for the centres where the National Football League will be played to discuss the matter.
Representatives of the Indian Football Association (Bengal), Western India Football Association (Mumbai), Goa Football Association, Kerala Football Association and Punjab Football Association attended the meeting.
"We discussed this issue in detail but no final decision has yet been taken," Colaco said.
The AIFF is trying to reduce the gap between the two legs of the round so that national players are not left out of the early stages of the professional league, which would reduce the event's mass appeal and glamour quotient.
"As of now, the two matches take almost a month. We want that the games be brought closer so that players are free to play for their clubs," he said.
Mumbai outfit Mahindra United are due to face Lebanese outfit Al Nejmeh in the quarter-finals of the AFC Cup, scheduled to be held on September 18 and 25, and so the World Cup qualifiers could hamper their preparation too for the continental competition.
"It is a coincidence that Mahindras are also playing a Lebanese side in the AFC Cup. We already have a pointman in Lebanon and we are pursuing the matter with the Federation there," the AIFF General Secretary said.
When the reply from Lebanon comes, only then can the AIFF take a decision in this matter.
If India beat Lebanon in the two-legged fixture, it will face the winners of the first round between North Korea and Mongolia in matches scheduled for November 9 and 18.
Colaco said the AFC had changed the format for World Cup qualification this time which has created problems.
"They had not mentioned the exact dates for the matches before. Also, last time there were only eight teams fighting for World Cup qualification. This time there are 38 teams in the first round," he said.
Meanwhile, the AIFF has not heard anything from the Iranian Federation regarding its national team's participation in the ONGC Nehru Cup starting August 17.
"They have not got back to us. We will only wait till August 9 when the draw and schedule of the tournament has to be announced," Colaco added.
