NEW DELHI: The executive committee of the All India Football Federation has taken a serious view of the fact that various unauthorised and unregistered football tournaments are conducted across the country.
The committee felt that this practice often goes against the interest of the states, clubs, footballers, and all stakeholders of the game.
To put a stop to this, the executive committee has reached the following decisions:
1. No AIFF-registered player, coach, or referee should be permitted to participate in unauthorised tournaments that do not have permission from the State Association and their affiliated district or taluk units.
2. If any of the state, district, club, or academy should flag these issues to AIFF, and simultaneously to the state, then the state should take strong action against those players, coaches, or referees found to be guilty, as per the constitution and other by-laws of the respective State Association.
3. All MAs are advised to develop and implement their own tournament registration policies. If any organisation or private body intends to conduct a tournament in a particular district or state, they need to reach out to their respective district and/or state association for due permission or registration that can be accepted on the following conditions :
(a) only registered clubs/academies can participate
(b) only players registered in the registered clubs can represent the teams
(c) only licensed referees should be officiating the games
(d) organising bodies should provide the full security for the players/officials
The AIFF acting secretary general M Satyanarayan, said: “The decision has been taken after careful consideration of several aspects. We regularly receive complaints from the clubs, whose players sometimes take part in these unauthorised and unregistered tournaments and often suffer injuries while playing on substandard surfaces. It forces the clubs to lose the services of the unfit players.
“It has also come to our notice that these tournaments witness the presence of a large number of foreign players, who do not have players-specific visas. It often leads to security risks and unwarranted situations causing problems for the state associations and all other stakeholders of Indian football.
“Indeed, organised football has not reached the desired level in some parts of the country and unauthorised and unregistered tournaments take advantage of the vacuum created. Our aim is not to entirely bring an end to this practice but to bring them into the manifold. These tournaments can now register themselves with local football authorities as per the rules and regulations of the respective state associations and clubs with registered players can participate in these tournaments. It will certainly help the players gain more game time every season. It will also help the tournaments avail the services of the registered referees.”
POSTSCRIPT: About Satyanarayan, it is more than indicative of the sorry state of affairs at India’s football governing body that said official has been functioning as “acting” secretary general since November 2023, with no sign or indication that the AIFF is in any hurry to either formalise his position or appoint a new secretary general.
It bears noting that Satyanarayan has been “acting” out his role since his predecessor (not in an “acting” role but a full fledged one) Dr Shaji Prabhakaran was summarily sacked in November 2023 as differences with the controversy-ridden serving AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey came to the fore.
Under Chaubey’s watch, there have been controversies not only around Prabhakaran’s summary dismissal, but also over the allegations of corruption levelled against the BJP politician by AIFF’s ousted legal head, Nilanjan Bhattacharjee.
The latest controversy involving Chaubey was brought out last Friday by ousted (the oustees list continues to expand) India football coach Igor Stimac, who said the sooner the AIFF president leaves the post, the better it would be for the future of football in the country where the globally-loved sport is not growing at all.
Allegations notwithstanding, it is an undeniable fact that during Chaubey’s tenure, India’s FIFA ranking has witnessed a steady decline and currently stands at 124.
