New Delhi, May 8 (IANS): All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Praful Patel joined all national team coaches via a video conference to understand the sustainability of development of various age groups during the lockdown phase, and also their well-being.

Igor Stimac, Shanmugam Venkatesh, Thomas Dennerby, Maymol Rocky, Bibiano Fernandes, Shuvendu Panda were in attendance from their respective homes. Kushal Das, general secretary, AIFF, and Abhishek Yadav, director, national teams were also present, the AIFF said in a statement.

The coaches apprised Patel about the respective individual workout schedules which have been handed over to all players during the period, and the process in which they are being monitored, courtesy video conferencing and various WhatsApp groups.

President Patel stated that "these are challenging times for everybody and that no one had seen anything like this. We need to be patient."

Lauding the coaches doing a "great job," the AIFF President was quoted as saying by the-aiff.com: "There's a huge amount of work going on at the age-group level, and all of that is our constant effort to bring in a big change in India's football culture. India is a big country with a lot of limitations but our effort is to continue on the process for laying a strong foundation for the future of Indian football teams."

The general secretary also apprised the President that the AIFF technical committee which met earlier in the day has recommended the 3 (foreigners) + 1 (Asian recruit) rule for all domestic league matches to be implemented after 2020-21 season.