Former India goalkeeper Kalyan Chaubey was elected as the new president of the All India Football Federation. The federation conducted its first elections after nearly six years of administrative turmoil, thus appointing the former India goalkeeper as the new chief during the elections conducted at the AIFF headquarters in New Delhi.
The elections were conducted to decide three posts. For the post of vice-president, NA Haris - president of the Karnataka State Football Association was elected. Kipa Ajay of Arunachal Pradesh won the election for the treasurer’s post, the report added.
The three will join the remaining 14 members already elected to form the executive committee of the AIFF. Bhutia will be a part of the executive committee as one of the six co-opted players along with IM Vijayan, Shabbir Ali, Climax Lawrence, Pinky Bompal Magar, Thongam Tababi Devi.
This was the first time since December 2016 that an AIFF election had taken place. However, Praful Patel’s last election was deemed illegal on November 2017 after the Delhi High Court found that the AIFF constitution violated the 2011 National Sports Code.
No elections were held thereon – even after Patel’s tenure ended in 2020 – since the AIFF approached the Supreme Court to help sort out the problems with the constitution. In May this year, the Supreme Court removed Patel and appointed a three-member Committee of Administrators to handle the AIFF’s affairs, alarming world governing body Fifa.
A joint-delegation from Fifa and the Asian Football Confederation gave India a July 31 deadline to adopt a new constitution, with elections to be held by September 15.
Fifa’s demands were essentially to remove the CoA and hand back all power to the AIFF. The Supreme Court passed an order on August 22 fulfilling the demands, and the ban was lifted four days later.
