FIFA-AFC team to hold talks with stakeholders

A joint team of the FIFA and AFC will meet various stakeholders of Indian football from Wednesday to discuss the way forward on holding the long-pending elections of the national federation at the earliest under an amended constitution.

During the talks with the stakeholders, including the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), the visiting delegation is likely to lay emphasis on having a time frame regarding the All India Football Federation (AIFF) elections and compliance of its statutes in the amended constitution.

The team, to be led by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) general secretary Datuk Seri Windsor John, will have two members from FIFA in Kenny Jean Marie, the chief member associations officer, and Nodar Akhalkatsi, the director of strategic projects and member association governance.

The AFC’s deputy general secretary Vahid Kardany, its South Asia Unit (development and member association governance) head Parushottam Kattel and senior manager of Central Asia unit Yogesh Desai are the other members of the joint team that arrived here on Monday.

The joint team is expected to meet the members of the CoA, former AIFF president Praful Patel – who is also a FIFA Council member – and the representatives of the state associations. The team is also likely to meet Sports Minister Anurag Thakur before leaving the country on June 23.

World football governing body FIFA did not impose immediate ban on India after the Supreme Court removed the Patel-led dispensation and appointed the CoA to run the affairs of the AIFF. But, a top official of a state association said that it is not going to be easy going forward and added that FIFA is going to set conditions, failing which the country can be banned.

“The FIFA-AFC team will listen to the various stakeholders. It is not going to say: ‘we are going to ban India’. It (the ban) is unlikely to happen in the coming days,” the state official told PTI.

The visiting delegation is likely to lay emphasis on having a time frame regarding the AIFF elections