The football activities are bustling in the city, both on and off the field, after All India Football Federation (AIFF) held its Executive Committee meeting in Mumbai on Sunday. On Monday as well, a special meeting was underway between various stake holders in the city to chalk out future course of Indian football.
AIFF Executive Committee meeting happens usually at its head office in Dwarka, New Delhi with many meetings and conferences happening either in Kolkata or Goa. The city has been home to senior Indian national team since 2016, hosting its training camps and many international friendlies.
National team coach Stephen Constantine is comfortable working with Mumbai Football District Association and has been enjoying the hospitability here. AIFF members also seem to take liking for Mumbai. The AIFF technical committee meeting was also held in the city earlier and last year’s AIFF annual awards ceremony was also held at a city hotel.
Praful Patel, President of AIFF, chaired the meeting in presence of General Secretary Kushal Das and other executive members that also included former Mahendra United and Mumbai FC player Abhishek Yadav. Mumbai based Chirag Tanna, who was Head of Operations in disbanded Pune FC, represented Football Sports Development in the meeting as a special invitee along with FIFA Regional Development Officer, Prince Rufus.
The Committee strongly condemned Indian Olympic Committee’s decision to debar men’s and women’s teams from participating in the forthcoming Asian Games scheduled to be held in Jakarta next month. The Committee also unanimously ratified the 2018-19 Club licensing regulations.
In an effort to curb age-fraud, the TW3 test, which has been accepted by the Supreme Court as an age verification test, also used extensively by the BCCI, has been implemented by the Committee for all age-group competitions, including club competitions, state tournaments and even national team competitions. The costs for the tests would be borne by the respective Clubs and State Associations.
Abiding by the FIFA regulations, the Committee also ratified the use of five substitutions in age-group competitions, along with an extra substitute if the match is stretched to extra-time.
The Committee also recommended that a standard draft agreement should be circulated to the clubs, which will include all the clauses that need to be included as per the FIFA regulations. However, clubs would be allowed to use certain variable clauses as an annexure. This will be implemented from the 2019-20 season.
Based on AIFF two-member Committee(Mr. Subrata Dutta and Col. BMR Mehta)’s visit to Football Association, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the Committee decided to grant provisional affiliation to Dadra and Nagra Naveli which would later be approved by AIFF’s General Body in the AGM meeting later.
Meanwhile, Sunil Chhetri was declared the 2017 AIFF Player of the Year while Kamala Devi was adjudged the 2017 AIFF Woman Player of the Year.
Anirudh Thapa and E Panthoi were adjudged the 2017 Emerging Player and the 2017 Woman Emerging Player of the Year respectively.
