Just remind them of this.
India by far the most shark football nation in the world per capita.
Curacao 3 India 1
Curacao 160,000 humans, plus a few expats in Holland etc
India 1.4 Billion odd plus a few million expats
That's embarrassing, even if 1 Billion are too busy trying to eat to worry about luxuries like playing sport - still leaves a few million to pick a football team out of.