BHUBANESWAR: It is about six months now that the Football Association of Odisha (FAO) has finished its four-year term but there is no sign of election for the new set of office bearers. According to the norm, the newly-elected body should have been in place after the tenure got over.
Even the FAO admitted that and said it would organise the election by the end of this month or in July. “The tenure has already been completed and the process has begun to hold the election soon”, said FAO joint secretary Avijit Pal.
BJD Rajya Sabha member Debashish Samantaray and former Odisha Cricket Association secretary Asirbad Behera are the president and secretary of the FAO respectively.
The FAO was formed after the Odisha Football Association went defunct due to court orders. The body has conducted three elections since it was formed in 2010. Samantaray has been the president for three terms and Behere has completed two terms in office.
It is to be noted that there are 32 units including 30 districts of the state. Bhubaneswar and Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) have three votes each and what seems interesting is that there are about 42 clubs and schools in Cuttack which have two votes each. Apart from that, ECoR, Odisha Police, Odisha Council too have voting rights.
Questions have been raised over the clubs of Cuttack getting the right to vote and play in the FAO league. Even FAO vice president Hrudananda Behera said that he had raised this issue in the General Body meeting. Hrudananda told this daily that FAO leaders replied in the general body meeting that "it is in their constitution and to add other clubs of different districts of the state they need an amendment in the constitution".