Banerjee to be appointed as technical director

Former India captain and coach P.K. Banerjee could become the technical director of the national football squad for the SAFF Cup.

According to All-India Football Federation (AIFF) sources, the newly appointed national coach Syed Nayeemuddin is keen to see P.K. take on the job at least for the time being.

Nayeem has always been known to be close to P.K. and considers him as one of his gurus.

Nayeem is back as India's coach after seven years and he will look to work up a fierce competitive frenzy among his boys before they participate in the SAFF Cup in December, his first assignment since he took over last week.

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India had won the SAFF Cup in 1997 in Nepal under the stewardship of Carlton Chapman and Nayeem as the coach.

Sources said Nayeem wishes to use P.K.'s match reading skills because the latter has been more in touch with the present crop of footballers.

Indian football's national camp starts November 24. P.K. is expected to be appointed technical director of the team well before that.

In any case, Nayeem has plans of inviting P.K. and Chuni Goswami to give a pep talk to the national footballers at the camp.