India’s football body attracting the FIFA suspension could not have come at the worst time. As long as the embargo is in place, the country can neither take part in international fixtures nor conduct the U-19 Women World Cup, which was supposed to take place in India in October. For India to get the suspension revoked, its governing body of the game, the All India Football Federation (AIFF), must perform its regular duties without any external interference whatsoever. And it needs to be seen if the Supreme Court’s latest decision to disband the Committee of Administrators appointed to look after the affairs of the AIFF would facilitate removing the temporary ban imposed by FIFA. But for now, let’s get into the whole drama that encircled the AIFF prior to falling foul of the international governing body of the sport.
AIFF President’s Reluctance To Vacate The Post
AIFF’s last president, Praful Patel, put in three tenures comprising four years. Patel’s last term got over in 2020. As per Indian Sports Code, a maximum of three terms are permissible but the AIFF president refused to leave the post and asked his executive committee also to remain in power.
The reluctance on the part of Patel stemmed from a 2017 case with the Supreme Court concerning clarity over the AIFF constitution. Hence, the president refused to leave his post and the AIFF also refrained from conducting fresh elections till the resolution of the matter.
How The Impasse Was Broken?
The sports ministry entered the picture, once the AIFF president dug in his heels, warning of derecognizing the body by the Government of India (GoI). However, the issue got resolved in May 2022, when Patel finally relented and the AIFF agreed to abide by the SC’s ruling to conduct fresh elections. As per Apex Court’s recommendation, a three-member team was appointed to perform regular duties of the country’s football body. The Committee of Administrators (CoA) comprised retired Justice AR Dave as the head and former Indian captain Bhaskar Ganguly and former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi as the other members.
Molestation Charges Only Added To The Woes
The AIFF received another jolt when erstwhile I-League club Minerva Punjab’s owner accused General Secretary Kushal Das of molesting employees. This allegation negatively impacted the image of the AIFF further. But the game’s governing body in the country rejected the allegation after its integrity officer Javed Siraj dismissed the charges on the ground that he had a consultation with current and previous heads of the AIFF Internal Complaints Committee regarding the issue. However, the damage had been done by then with the AIFF attracting unwanted attention from both India’s sports ministry and FIFA.
Government Deciding To Reduce Funding For The Body
With Indian football hardly making an impact on the global stage for the last few years the GoI directed AIFF to focus more on nurturing talent at the grassroots. This also prompted the government to minimize AIFF funding, which was apparent from a report by the Annual Calendar of Training and Competitions. As per the report, the money given to AIFF has been reduced considerably from Rs 30 crore (for the year 2019-2020) to Rs 5 crore (for the year 2022-2023). This angered the country’s football body further.
Presently,
After these events, the world’s football governing body imposed a temporary ban on AIFF to complicate the matter even more. Hence, for the development of the “beautiful game” in the country let’s hope the fresh initiative taken by the Apex Court helps AIFF to break free from the shackles of FIFA’s temporary ban.
