CHENNAI: It’s always been the ambition of the All India Football Federation for football to follow the path cricket has taken. Looks like they might finally have their wish, though it may not have been how they wanted it!
The Delhi High Court, on Thursday, stayed the AIFF elections, scheduled for December 21, following a PIL filed by noted sports lawyer Rahul Mehra. The polls would have elected AIFF office bearers till 2020. With no opposition to his candidature, the elections would have seen Praful Patel re-elected president. AIFF had released a document showing that there were only 17 candidates for the 17 posts available.
“The matter came up, it was argued for about an hour and-a-half,” Mehra told Express. “I showed how the elections were being conducted and the letter which had gone from Kushal Das (AIFF secretary) to all the secretaries of various member associations, where they had actually given a shadow cabinet of sorts and said these are the people who should be elected.
“It was a unanimous election of sorts, when no election was happening. The Sports Code actually talks about one proposer who should propose the name. The AIFF constitution says five proposers. That is undemocratic. Lesser number of people will be able to muster those five proposers. The election process was shown to the court and the court decided to stay the elections.”
The elections had been mired in controversy ever since the AIFF named its list of nominees. Goa, at loggerheads with the officialdom in both I-League and ISL in recent times, found no place, with current vice-president Srinivas Dempo’s post being handed to Rajasthan Football Association’s Manavendra Singh. Interestingly, the Rajasthan FA had been defunct until recently.
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com