AIFF may look beyond Juan Manuel as India coach

New Delhi: The All India Football Federation is unlikely to appoint Spaniard Juan Manuel Lilo as the chief

coach of the national team as the salary he demanded seemed to be "astronomical." Reliable sources in the federation informed that the Spanish coach had "demanded an astronomical remuneration which simply will not be possible for AIFF to meet." "It was an ok sort of an interaction he had with the AIFF top brass. As expected he has very little knowledge about Indian football but he said that he remembers having watched N P Pradeep in action and also knows names of I M Vijayan and Jo-Paul Ancheri. But I guess that`s not good enough to zero in on him," an influential AIFF official said. The other problem will certainly be his lack of communication skills. "You can say he has little or no knowledge of english which becomes very difficult. He has however promised that he would take English tuitions and learn the language at the earliest if given the job," the official remarked. As of now the AIFF has five more applicants who will be interviewed before they finalise anything. Meanwhile, Mahesh Gawli and Climax Lawrence are likely to lead the teams in the two international friendlies against Maldives and Qatar on July 10 and 17 respectively. The squad of 30 will leave for Maldives` capital Male tomorrow. India`s interim coach Armando Coalco however informed that it will be a single captain who will lead the team in both the World Cup qualifiers against UAE on July 23 and 28 respectively. Gawli who is the seniormost is the likely choice. PTI