India

The India women's national football team is controlled by the All India Football Federation and represents India in women's international football competitions. The women's team resumed playing on 7 September 2012 after nearly a year-long hiatus. Under the global jurisdiction of FIFA and governed in Asia by the AFC, India is also part of the South Asian Football Federation. The team was one of the best in Asia in the mid 1970s to early 1980s, when they became runners-up in the 1979 and the 1983 AFC Women's Asian Cup.

The women's national team is yet to participate in the FIFA Women's World Cup and the Olympic Games. Present ranking of the team according to FIFA Women's World Rankings is 57 and 13 among the Asian countries.

History

1970–2009: rise and fall

Football for women in Asia started later compared to their male counterparts. The seed of women's football in India was planted in the early 1970s. The first manager was Sushil Bhattacharya, in 1975 and from 1975 till 1991, the administration of the game was in the hands of the Women's Football Federation of India (WFFI) which comes under the Asian Ladies' Football Confederation (ALFC) that had recognition from neither Fifa nor AFC (Asian Football Confederation). Both organizations continuously tried to dissuade Asian countries from sending teams to these tournaments for which the first few editions of AFC Women's Asian Cup other unofficial tournaments seen very few teams to participate and thus the 1980 Calicut edition of Asian Championship featured two Indian teams (India N & India S), Western Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. India did well enough in all these unofficial tournaments under Sushil Bhattacharya and India S become runners-up at Calicut. In the next edition of 1981 India achieved third position, defeated by Thailand and again became runners-up in the 1983 edition losing to Thailand again. This was the best chapter for the Indian women team in the Asian platform as since 1983 the