Court rap may lead to FIFA red card for AIFF
By Express News Service | Published: 01st November 2017 12:24 AM |
Last Updated: 01st November 2017 12:24 AM | A+A A- |
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and AIFF President Praful Patel (File | PTI)
CHENNAI: As AIFF president Praful Patel exchanged jokes with his FIFA counterpart Gianni Infantino last week, at least some of those in attendance, familiar with the curses that Indian football has historically been saddled with, must have wondered when the fall was coming!
It has come a lot sooner than expected.
Just two days after curtains fell on the first-ever World Cup on Indian soil, the All India Football Federation stands a significant risk of being suspended by FIFA.
A dramatic fall from grace, considering India hosted a FIFA council just days ago. On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court set aside the December 2016 election of Patel on a plea by sports lawyer Rahul Mehra, who contested that the polls were against the sports code and that AIFF's constitution had 'undemocratic restrictive clauses'.
A bench of justices S Ravindra Bhat and Najmi Waziri also appointed former chief election commissioner SY Quraishi as an administrator to run the AIFF.
"Delhi HC in my PIL sets aside election of @praful_patel as it violated Govt SportsCode. @DrSYQuraishi appointed as the Administrator of AIFF," Mehra tweeted after the verdict.
In FIFA's eyes, this might amount to third-party interference which may lead to suspension. One only has to look as far as what happened to Pakistan last month when they were suspended for the same sin. Pakistan's suspension, ironically, was ratified at the council meeting held in Kolkata.
"The Bureau took this decision as a result of the fact that the PFF offices and its accounts remain in control of a court-appointed administrator, which constitutes a violation of the PFF obligations to manage its affairs independently and without influence from any third parties in accordance with the FIFA Statutes," a FIFA statement had said then.
Furthermore, Article 14 specifies that the association will be liable for suspension, 'even if the third-party influence was not the fault of the member association concerned'.
A suspension right now would be disastrous for Indian football, considering all that's going on. A bid for the U-20 World Cup and the national team's participation in the AFC Asian Cup will be jeopardised. If that happens, the AIFF though will only have themselves to blame.
