However, India themselves withdrew from the tournament shortly before it began; officially, this was due to travel costs, but FIFA had offered to pay the team’s travel expenses, new mexico jersey 2024-25 and the real reason behind their withdrawal has been widely speculated in the decades since. While it was commonly believed that India withdrew due to FIFA’s ban on playing barefoot, the team’s captain at that time, Sailen Manna, insisted that this was not the case; it is now generally accepted that India withdrew simply because they valued the Olympics more than the World Cup and did not view the latter is being prestigious enough to justify taking part.
