Ranjit Bajaj declines AIFF appointment as India U-15 manager hours after announcement

Ranjit Bajaj said he would not take up the role of manager of India’s U-15 team for the FIFA U-15 World Cup in Azerbaijan, hours after the All India Football Federation named him to the post on August 6, 2026. The Minerva Academy owner told India Today he had not been informed prior to the public announcement and is unlikely to accept the assignment.

Bibiano Fernandes retained his position as head coach while the AIFF introduced Bajaj as team manager after weeks of debate about India’s youth football setup; the move was presented as an effort to pair a prominent grassroots advocate with the existing youth structure. Bajaj said he discovered the appointment only when congratulatory calls and media enquiries began arriving. "I had absolutely no idea. I found out only after I started getting calls asking me whether I had been appointed. That’s how I got to know. Nobody from the AIFF had spoken to me before the announcement."

Bajaj described being contacted by reporters and having to seek confirmation from officials himself. "People started congratulating me. Reporters were calling me for quotes and reactions, and I was sitting there wondering what exactly had happened because nobody from the AIFF had even informed me. Only I knew what the real situation was." He said he then phoned AIFF officials: "I had to call the officials myself to ask whether it was true. Only then they told me, ‘Yes, this is going to happen. We’ll send you the letter in a while.'"

The Minerva Academy owner posted a video on social media indicating he was unlikely to accept and emphasised his reservations were not personal toward Fernandes. Bajaj said he respects Bibiano and his work but questioned the logic of pairing the two in the same setup: "I don’t see the logic behind appointing me as manager and Bibiano as coach together."

Bajaj objected to being expected to operate with a coaching staff he had not worked with, rather than the support team he developed at Minerva Academy. "With absolutely no disrespect to Bibiano or his coaching staff, I don’t know them. If I don’t know the people around me, how am I supposed to work in complete sync with them?" He illustrated the difficulty by comparing differing working styles: "It’s like appointing Mourinho and Pep together. I’m not comparing our stature, but our styles are different. They have different ideas, different ways of working. It just doesn’t make sense."

He framed his objections as criticism of AIFF planning rather than of Fernandes personally, adding concerns about how decisions were taken. "This is not how a professional federation works. Unfortunately, this has become a repeated pattern." "These are the things that are hurting Indian football," he said, linking the episode to broader administrative issues.

Bajaj has been an outspoken figure on social media, regularly questioning the sport’s administration and publicising the performances of Minerva Academy’s youth teams, which prompted calls for him to have a larger role in youth development. Some coaches and observers, the article notes, view his strengths as project-building and academy management rather than hands-on tactical coaching; the immediate question following the announcement was why the AIFF failed to define roles or ensure those involved had been informed before going public.

Bajaj also raised concerns about timing, noting the FIFA U-15 World Cup is scheduled to begin in October and arguing there was insufficient time for proper preparation. "The tournament is only a couple of months away. What scouting can you do now? What planning can you do now?" he asked, adding: "Youth football is about long-term planning. You don’t start building a World Cup team two months before the tournament."

Barely hours after the AIFF’s announcement, the focus shifted from India’s preparations for the FIFA U-15 World Cup to whether the federation had a clear plan before making a major youth-football announcement.