NEW DELHI: Even as AIFF president Praful Patel is deservedly getting plaudits for his election at the weekend as India’s first ever member to the FIFA executive council, back home it was more brickbats from aggrieved I-League clubs.
Soon after his election, Patel said he may have become a member of the FIFA Executive council but his first priority remains the betterment of Indian football.
On that score however, Patel did not help his case any by the comments he made soon after. Patel said: “Regarding the future road-map of Indian football, we are all working hard in the right direction, I can assure you all.”
“Despite my busy schedule because of the general elections back home and today’s FIFA Council, I assured them (the I-League clubs) that I would meet from April 11 to 14. But, despite my assurance, they acted in a manner that is unbecoming of sportsmanship. What is the point of having this meeting now since they have pulled out of the Super Cup?”.
Patel’s angst may have been over the decision by seven I-League clubs to pull out of the tournament citing unfair treatment by the AIFF, but the optics projected did not help any in building the case that the seasoned politician and former civil aviation minister was an “honest broker” in the fracas.
An I-League club executive spoke to Mumbai Mirror on the matter and described Patel’s comments as posturing.
Posturing was also in evidence from the clubs, with Neroca FC joining Minerva Punjab FC in declaring they might shut down considering the state of Indian football right now.
Neroca wrote on Twitter: “What’s happening with Indian football!! After so much of hard work and investment, we qualified for the top league in 2017 and just after playing 2 seasons of it, we are put to the second division once again. There is no other option but to shut down out beloved club!! We may not be rich with money but definitely we are rich with footballing talents!! But guess Indian football is only about money now!! No room for hard working clubs.”
In that department, no one can hold a candle to Minerva Punjab FC owner Ranjit Bajaj though. His propensity to shoot from the lip was on in full tilt when he accused the AIFF and its commercial partners Football Sports Development Ltd of being behind the decision of the Odisha sports department to withdraw permission for the use of Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar as the Punjab outfit’s home ground for its AFC Cup matches.
The real reason, however, is far more mundane. An Odisha sports department official told News18.com that it needs to start the renovation of Kalinga Stadium as soon as possible in order to be available for the U-17 Women’s World Cup next year. They conveyed that because of the scattered nature of the AFC Cup matches, they will lose a lot of time.
An Odisha sports department official said: “Minerva wanted our stadium (Kalinga Stadium) for their AFC Cup games and we were happy to give it to them very early on in the year. Now the 2020 U-17 Women’s World Cup came up and our stadium took up as one of the hosts. We spoke to AIFF to understand the kind of changes the stadium needs to make it ready to be approved by FIFA.
“What happens is FIFA doesn’t approve of stadiums just ready, they want to see the renovations happening and once a significant chunk of renovations have already happened, they send for analysis and then it goes like ‘okay, this can be one of the venues for the World Cup’.
“So for that, there might be structural changes required to the stadium. On the basis of that, we have to get started on that as soon as possible.
“With Minerva, AFC Cup games are scattered, they’ve got one game in May and two by the end of June. That just takes away two months of time. We were not in a position to let Minerva use it because it would have seriously hampered our chances to make the stadium ready for the 2020 U-17 Women’s World Cup, which is very important to us.”
The official also said that they had conveyed the matter simultaneously to Minerva and AIFF and the football federation has told them that they will assist Minerva in getting permission from AFC for venue change, upon receiving the request from the Chandigarh club.
“We have already conveyed this to AIFF and they have told us that they are just awaiting a venue change request from Minerva Punjab and they will be happy to help Minerva get the AFC approval for the venue change.”
“We had sent the same email simultaneously to both Minerva Punjab and AIFF saying that we won’t be able to provide the Kalinga Stadium for AFC Cup games usage.”
On being asked about whether they are aware of AFC rules and that Minerva may get banned for the last-minute change, the official said, “I’m no expert on it but I don’t think that’s the case. That’s the federation’s matter.”
The official also said he had conveyed the matter to Minerva properly and had even asked them to get back in case of any genuine concerns.
“But the next thing we see is that we conspired with I don’t know who to sabotage the games for them. Instead of a formal confirmation from them (Minerva), we heard all that first from Twitter.”
The clubs are slated to have a meeting with the AIFF president between April 11-15. Less of posturing and more of honest brokering by Patel would likely help the Indian club football ecosystem far more at this juncture.
