Time to take away control of sports from politicians

 As India celebrated its 76th Independence Day – at the stroke of midnight – we witnessed something we hadn’t seen in 75 long years. And in the process, we joined a rather ignominious list of countries like Pakistan and Zimbabwe whose soccer boards have been banned by the international governing body FIFA.

In a massive embarrassment to India and its football lovers, the threat turned into reality when the apex body of the sport suspended the country’s top administrative organisation, the All India Football Federation, for “undue influence from third parties”.

 Now what’s this third-party influence? Even after completing all of 12 years as president of the AIFF, Praful Patel, who is also a council member of the FIFA, is unwilling to vacate the post. This politics is partially the reason behind the suspension. Not letting elections to be held for two years has also contributed.

 He has cited the long-drawn-out pandemic, coupled with a court case regarding the AIFF constitution. The Supreme Court had to intervene and remove Patel from the position. A Committee of Administrators (COA) was later appointed to run the AIFF. As per FIFA statutes, member federations should not be subject to legal and political interference in their respective countries. “Third-party intervention” could be a situation in which a member associate of FIFA is no longer independent, is co-opted, and has lost control over happenings within. In this case, the SC’s diktat to the COA to run the AIFF was a textbook case of third-party interference.

 Of course, it was a time bomb waiting to explode. It could easily have been defused if all parties concerned had shown prudence in “setting the house in order”.

Well, that means international participation in Indian football is a thing of the past, and this applies to all national teams, club teams across all age groups.

The suspension also impacts international transfers, as well as any courses or developmental programmes that AIFF officials could, or were, taking part in. This in effect means a total ban on all football-related activities outside India.

It simply means that all the hard work our players are putting in to bring glory to the nation will go to naught because some ‘seat grabbers’ place themselves ahead of the sport.

As per FIFA, the ban will only be lifted if AIFF follows all directives and mandates of the COA, which means the COA would have to be repealed in full. And the AIFF administration will have to be completely in charge of its day-to-day running once again. Its constitution must be revised on terms of FIFA and Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) policies. Elections to the current AIFF membership structure based on state associations will have to be held. Not only over football, India has also been warned by the International Olympic Association for not holding elections. The International Hockey Federation is not happy with proceedings of Indian hockey, for “not following sports code” and having elected members “not fit to be in the position they occupy”. It is high time India’s apex court acted on all these issues.

Time to take away control of sports from politicians

 As India celebrated its 76th Independence Day – at the stroke of midnight – we witnessed something we hadn’t seen in 75 long years. And in the process, we joined a rather ignominious list of countries like Pakistan and Zimbabwe whose soccer boards have been banned by the international governing body FIFA.

In a massive embarrassment to India and its football lovers, the threat turned into reality when the apex body of the sport suspended the country’s top administrative organisation, the All India Football Federation, for “undue influence from third parties”.

 Now what’s this third-party influence? Even after completing all of 12 years as president of the AIFF, Praful Patel, who is also a council member of the FIFA, is unwilling to vacate the post. This politics is partially the reason behind the suspension. Not letting elections to be held for two years has also contributed.

 He has cited the long-drawn-out pandemic, coupled with a court case regarding the AIFF constitution. The Supreme Court had to intervene and remove Patel from the position. A Committee of Administrators (COA) was later appointed to run the AIFF. As per FIFA statutes, member federations should not be subject to legal and political interference in their respective countries. “Third-party intervention” could be a situation in which a member associate of FIFA is no longer independent, is co-opted, and has lost control over happenings within. In this case, the SC’s diktat to the COA t