NEW DELHI:
The executive committee of the All India Football Federation ratified the termination of Shaji Prabhakaran as the general secretary of AIFF, in a meeting held at the Football House in New Delhi on Thursday.
“The committee ratified the decision to terminate the contract of Dr. Shaji Prabhakaran as the Secretary General, and appoint Mr M Satyanarayan as the acting secretary general of the All India Football Federation,” the AIFF said in a statement.
Prabhakaran was relieved of his duties on Wednesday with the federation citing a ‘breach of trust’ as the reason. The former Delhi Football chief was elected to the high profile position in September last year.
“AIFF’s decision to terminate me comes as a shock. We were working as a team. Charging me for ‘breach of trust’ is a massive allegation,” Shaji posted on X after his summary sacking.
“More on this later. I remain a servant of the beautiful game and thank you all who have supported me in my honest effort for Indian football,” he added.
Any decision regarding the AIFF top brass is subject to approval from the federation’s executive committee and the seal of approval in the Thursday meeting means Prabhakaran’s termination has been sealed.
Be that as it may, it does put the comments made by AIFF vice-president NA Haris to PTI after Prabhakaran’s termination into stark relief.
Haris had said said Wednesday that “there is no need for the AIFF executive committee to ratify the decision of the president”.
“The post of the secretary-general is a paid post and he was not appointed by the executive committee. The president has the power to appoint and remove the secretary-general. So the president issued the termination letter,” Haris had said.
That the AIFF executive committee followed some form of due process rather than the out and out ad hocism that Haris appears fine with is to be welcomed.
