FIFA suspends AIFF – The end of Indian Football?

Shockwaves ran through the Indian football community as FIFA suspended All India Football Federation (AIFF) due to “undue influence from third parties” which is a serious violation of the FIFA statutes. Many in the football community fear it could spell the end of India’s football story while others feel it is a minor setback.

Is this the end of the Indian football story? What does it mean for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup?

Before I give my opinion on that, let me talk about what the situation is and who is this “third party” in question.

Sitting president Praful Patel (NCP leader and ex-Union Minister) was ousted by the Supreme Court of India earlier in May as he failed to conduct elections which were due in December 2020. The Supreme Court then appointed a three member Committee of Administrators (CoA) to manage the affairs of AIFF which consisted of former judge AR Dave, former Chief Election Commissioner S Y Qureshi, and former Indian football team captain Bhaskar Ganguly. The Court empowered the CoA to provide its inputs to facilitate the adoption of the Constitution of the AIFF under the directions of the Court after considering suggestions/objections. The CoA was also directed to prepare the electoral college for the purpose of conducting elections to the Executive Committee in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution as proposed subject to further directions from the court. Of the nearly 215 comments from objectors including State Associations, FIFA, AFC, the CoA accepted 98% of the objections. Elections were due to be held, the results of which would be declared on August 28th.

However there was a fresh twist to this tale when it was alleged on August 11 that Praful Patel arranged letters from FIFA and Asian Football Confederation (AFC) threatening a ban on India. Praful Patel as an administrator has a poor record. Before AIFF he was in charge of running Air India and we all know how that turned out. It was pretty much the same at AIFF with allegations of corruption and mismanagement. While Patel even went on to acquire a seat in the FIFA council, not much happened for Indian football. What makes matters worse is that the decision to ban AIFF by the FIFA council was unanimous, which means Praful Patel also voted to ban AIFF.

It is a shameful episode of internal sabotage just a day after India celebrated its 75th Independence Day. While not explicitly stated, it seems FIFA has considered the Supreme Court of India as a “third party”. However, I don’t think FIFA has any malicious intentions and this feels like a pressure tactic to force AIFF to quickly conduct elections and clean up its act. However, the actions of Praful Patel are definitely malicious and there should intense scrutiny of his intentions. Any organization has to obey the laws of the land and thus intervention of the Supreme Court cannot be considered third party intervention. Similarly, the government being the largest funder for sports activities, there tends to be a lot of government interference which should definitely be reduced over time. However the major problem that has lead to this debacle is political interference. In India, almost every sports body is filled with power and money hungry politicians who more often do little for the development of sports. There need to be strict laws to limit political interference which is embarrassing our country, for the benefit of football and sports.

Is it the end of the Indian football story? Hardly. While this is an extremely shameful episode in our history, this is also an opportunity to clean up AIFF and set rules to prevent a similar episode from taking place in the future. AIFF itself has passionate hard working employees who wish to see the sport progress in India. It is also an opportunity to start anew and implement much needed reforms to improve grassroots football. This is just a minor setback which will have a long lasting impact.

What does this mean for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup? There is hope that with elections ending in August and a new committee taking over, the suspension will be lifted. FIFA in its statement mentioned that it is in “constant constructive contact with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports in India and is hopeful that a positive outcome to the case may still be achieved.” I still hold out on the hope that the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup will be allowed to take place in India on 11-30 October 2022.

India has one of the most vibrant and fastest growing footballing communities. There are many exciting new talents coming up at the grassroots level and many individuals looking to make a career in the sport. For the sake of everyone involved, it is time to limit political and government interference in football to prevent similar debacles in the future.