Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
Related Articles
On Tuesday, October 31; just three days after successfully hosting the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup, the All India Football Federation came in for a rude shock as the Delhi High Court set aside the election of its president Praful Patel, re-elected in December 2016 for a four-year term, his third successive tenure with the national football body.
That there were issues related to the way the AIFF elections were prepared and conducted was known at the time, but the intervention of the Delhi High Court on grounds of violating the National Sports Code of India and asking interim administrator S.Y. Quraishi to conduct fresh elections within a period of five months raises a different question according to me.
And that is, can the Delhi High Court verdict be seen as third party intervention by world football governing body FIFA and lead to the suspension of the AIFF and India?
Despite myself not being a lawyer, but having worked in sports management for close to two decades, my understanding and interpretation is clear that FIFA is tough when there is government and/or court interventions in the running of national football associations.
Therefore one sees the suspension of two to three national bodies every year, e.g. Pakistan at the moment.
As said, there were unclear issues regarding the last elections conducted by the AIFF, but why where these issues not raised by the returning officer, who was given charge of holding fresh and fair elections?
Also is the National Sports Code of India compliant with international sports laws? To some extend I have my doubts, then when a government frames guidelines and regulations that to me is already interference of that concerned government.
It seems that the positive momentum that India could have used from the FIFA U-17 World Cup has been blown away within days due to bureaucracy and court involvements, in matters where they should have stayed away.
