How a teenager from VIT Vellore pranked AIFF with Barcelona legend Xavi's application

AIFF earlier claimed that Barcelona legend Xavi had shown interest in managing the Indian football team.

A few days ago, the news of Xavi Hernandez applying for the role of the Indian football team broke out on social media. This news sent shockwaves among the Indian football fraternity.

However, later it was revealed that a 19-year-old undergraduate student from VIT Vellore pranked the All India Football Federation, and AIFF’s immaturity and leaking of unverified reports damaged its credibility and legitimacy in the international football community.

Also Read: Spanish media refute claims of Barcelona legend Xavi applying for India head coach role

What actually happened?

According to initial reports, AIFF’s director, Subrata Paul, had previously said that Xavi had applied for the role of Indian head coach.

“It’s correct that Xavi’s name was there. The application was emailed to the AIFF,” Subrata Paul told TOI.

Some even said that the federation rejected Xavi’s application, as his appointment would take a huge financial toll on AIFF.

Fans on social media even started criticising the federation for denying this golden opportunity for Xavi to manage the national football team. Even famous and reputed journalists like Fabrizio Romano posted about Xavi’s interest in managing the Indian football team.

However, in a major dramatic twist, many Spanish media agencies reported that this news was totally false and that the federation may have used Xavi’s name to lure big candidates for the role after an exponential dip in the applicants compared to last year.

AIFF officials fall for a prank by a 19-year-old!

After AIFF officially confirmed that the application of Pep Guardiola and Xavi was not genuine, a 19-year-old undergraduate student from VIT Vellore claimed to have pranked the federation with Xavi’s application. The student said that he created a fake email ID impersonating the Barcelona legend as [email protected]

He later said that he gave a prompt to ChatGPT to draft his mail as the Barcelona legend by expressing his interest in coaching the Indian national football team. He even reported having sent the mail twice to the the federation on July 4th and July 5th.

“I copied and pasted the ChatGPT response and mailed it. I didn’t attach a CV or anything, but I think they saw the mail,” said the teenager speaking to Telegraph Online.

However, the student later confirmed that he did not send any mail impersonating Pep Guardiola and did not even attach any CV.

How did this incident damage AIFF’s credibility?

At a time when the Indian football circuit has turned mockery, this incident has badly tarnished AIFF’s credibility as the top governing body of football in the country.

The federation has recently faced a lot of backlash after the uncertainty surrounding the future of ISL. A series of underwhelming performances from the Indian national football team and deciding the I League winners in a courtroom have sparked ridicule across social media and football circles.

Now, the public confidence and trust in AIFF has rattled even badly after this incident. The bigger question remains: how did an apex governing body fall for such a blatant hoax?

The incident, while humorous on the surface, has laid bare the systemic flaws in the federation’s administrative processes. Instead of showcasing professionalism and strong governance, the federation came off as naive and reactionary.

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