July 21 – After months of inertia, Indian football is slowly moving towards a new constitution as it seeks to avert a FIFA ban from the game.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the Committee of Administrators (CoA) and State Associations to file objections over the newly proposed constitution by July 25.
The CoA is running the day-to-day affairs of the All India Football Federations (AIFF) after Praful Patel was sidelined.
Earlier this week, some of the AIFF’s commercial partners, in particular Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL) which markets the Indian Super League (ISL), had approached the Supreme Court over contentious clauses in the draft constitution.
The FDSL objected because there were no guarantees that the ISL will remain India’s premier club competition.
Next week, the court will further discuss the draft constitution and ratify it, which will allow the AIFF to stage fresh presidential elections and vote for a successor to Patel.
A joint FIFA-AFC delegation, led by Asian Football Confederation General Secretary Windsor John and FIFA’s chief member associations officer Kenny Jean-Marie, previously asked the AIFF to clean up their act by getting the constitution of the national federation approved by 31 July and organising new elections by September 15.
Failure to comply could, in an extreme scenario, lead to the AIFF being banned from the global game and even potentially risking the hosting rights of the U-17 Women’s World Cup which India is to host in October.
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