NEW DELHI: In an interesting development considering the state of bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, the football federations of the two rival nations are reportedly acting in consort to form a breakaway body – South West Asian Football Federation (SWAFF) — after a meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Barring Nepal and Bhutan, representatives of five of the other South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) members — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives being the other three — have reportedly attended the meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according the several media reports in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and Yemen were the other countries from the West Asian region to have attended the meeting on May 10, the reports say. The newly proposed body will be headquartered in Jeddah.
Quoting All India Football Federation general secretary Kushal Das, Hindustan Times reported that the final shape to the new body was likely to come out after the meetings of presidents of the national federations on May 25. “There is a proposal (to form this regional federation) and we said we will examine it subject to the approval by the AIFF executive committee. It will help in developing Indian football and also improve relationship with these countries,” Das told HT.
Media reports from Bangladesh said Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin, also the president of SAFF, attended the gathering. “Nothing has matured yet at this stage regarding the meeting in Jeddah,’ Salahuddin has been quoted by Bangladesh based The Daily Star as having said. “There was a meeting in Jeddah where football officials of some South Asian and West Asian countries were present. But no concrete outline regarding any new federation or anything like that was decided upon.”
Some reports speculate that the birth of new SWAFF came to the fore due to a rift in the West Asian Football Federation between Jordanian president Prince Ali bin Al Hussian and Saudi Arabian authorities after the former turned down offers to shift West Asian Football Federation headquarters from Amman to Jeddah. Other media reports are speculating that the new alliance is being driven by the Saudis due to the festering political conflict it has against Qatar, which is due to stage the next FIFA World Cup in 2022, besides the motive of undermining the status of AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain and Jordan’s Prince Ali bin Al-Hussain, the former FIFA vice-president who challenged former president Sepp Blatter in the FIFA presidential election of 2015.
