A 19-year-old student from Vellore Institute of Technology has reportedly tricked the All-India Football Federation (AIFF) into believing that Xavi Hernandez had applied to become India’s next national team coach.
The teenager impersonated Barcelona legend Xavi Hernandez with a fake job application to be the head coach of the Indian national football team.
Here is how it went down. In early July 2025, the AIFF, India’s governing football body, received a shocking email—an application for the head coach job… from Xavi Hernandez himself! But there was a catch. This wasn’t really from Xavi.
According to The Telegraph India, the student created a fake Gmail account, [email protected], and asked ChatGPT to “write an email by Xavi Hernandez expressing his interest to coach the Indian football team.”
The AI-generated message was convincing enough that the AIFF took it seriously, even going so far as to brief the media that Xavi’s salary demands might be too high!
Even India’s team director, Subrata Pal, confirmed the receipt of the email. The incident garnered global attention, with reports from Fabrizio Romano.
Of course, this created quite the stir. But after investigation, AIFF confirmed the emails from Xavi and also a similar fake one from Pep Guardiola were actually hoaxes.
