Coaching applications supposedly from Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernandez to manage the India football team turned out to be a hoax, the National Association said on Saturday.
Subrata Paul, national team director of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), said earlier this week that Xavi had registered for the empty track.
But the Aiff said this weekend that the approaches were not “real”.
“The AIFF received an e -mail with the requests from Spanish coaches Pep Guardiola and Xavi Hernandez.
“The authenticity of their applications could not be confirmed, and since then it has arisen that the e -mail applications were not real,” the AIFF said.
The request from Manchester City Manager Guardiola has never been reported before.
The Indian men's team has been resigned without a coach since Spaniard Manolo Marquez as head coach earlier this month after just a year and one win in eight games.
The AIFF advertised the vacancy and later said it received 170 applications.
The men of India are 133rd in the FIFA ranking – their lowest placement in almost a decade – and only won one of their last 16 games.