Colaco also allayed fears about the academy the telecom major Bharati promised to set up in Goa saying AIFF's acting president Praful Patel is looking into the ambitious project, which was to start last year, as it is stuck over land transfer.

'I can assure you that the project is still on and we also have the option of shifting it to Haryana,' he said.

On the lack of infrastructure, Colaco lamented that since football is not a priority sport in India, it will be tough to built dedicated stadiums.

'Football is no longer a priority sport in India and so it is played in multipurpose stadiums, the Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi being the lone exception.'

Colaco, however, said if football was a part of the Commonwealth Games, some infrastructure would have come up in Delhi.

'It is so strange that despite football and cricket tracing their origin to England, they are not in the 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games. If football was the part of the Games, we would have built a stadium with government assistance.'

Asked why the big spending clubs could not get their own infrastructure, Colaco said: 'Most of them face the problem of funds and hence they hire grounds on lease.'

He added that the I-League clubs have two years' time to meet the Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) criteria of owning grounds and nurseries to train age-group teams.

'The next two years will be crucial for I-League. If we don't meet the criteria then we will miss the chance to qualify for the AFC Champions League.'

Colaco wants the AFC to take into account the status of Indian coaches like Sukhwinder Singh, Shubhas Bhowmick and Shabbir Ali and they should be allowed to continue coaching the I-League clubs.

'We realise that AFC wants all the I-League coaches to have A license, but Sukwinder, Bhowmick and Shabbir's standing cannot be equated with a mere license. The AIFF is in talks with the AFC and we hope to find a solution soon,' he said.

Colaco asserted Indian football is in for good times and he would wish his successor greater success as he could avoid the pitfalls he ran into and build on the edifice he has created in the last eight years.