In the AIFF Executive Committee Elections held today, Kalyan Chaubey and NA Haris won the elections for the President and vice-president of the AIFF. The duo won by a huge margin defeating rival presidential candidate Bhaichung Bhutia and VP candidate Manavendra Singh.
Chaubey will replace Praful Patel who held office from 2009 to 2022. The latter’s tenure was supposed to end in 2020 after being elected for a third consecutive time. However, a pending legal case regarding AIFF’s draft constitution and other issues related to the association led to Patel holding office till 2022. The Supreme Court took cognisance of the deviation from the National Sports Code and appointed a Committee of Administrators to take over AIFF’s affairs in May 2022.
This in turn led to FIFA banning the AIFF for third-party interference where they cited the formation of the CoA as third-party interference. After several higher-ups in the Central Government got involved and a subsequent repeal of the CoA mandate by the Supreme Court, the ban was lifted by FIFA recently.
The SC also set up the calendar for the AIFF elections to be held following the disbanding of the CoA. Former Indian national team, Mohun Bagan & East Bengal FC goalkeeper and BJP leader Kalyan Chaubey went up against Indian football legend Bhaichung Bhutia.
The state associations overwhelmingly voted in favour of Chaubey today – he won the election for the president with a margin of 33-1 over Bhutia. For the vice-president’s post, KSFA President NA Haris defeated Manvendra Singh, President of Rajasthan FA, 29-5 while Arunachal Pradesh’s Ajay Kipa got 32-1 against Andhra Pradesh’s Kosaraju Gopalakrishna for the Treasurer’s post.
There was some controversy with respect to the elections with Bhaichung Bhutia indicating that there was political pressure on the state associations to vote for Chaubey and vice-presidential candidate Manvendra Singh also saying to the press that the state FAs have ‘succumbed to political pressure and financial accounting.’
The list of the elected members of the AIFF General Body Elections 2022 stay as below:
President: Mr. Kalyan Chaubey
Vice President: Mr. NA Haris
Treasurer: Mr. Kipa Ajay
Executive Committee Members:
Mr. GP Palguna, Mr. Avijit Paul, Mr. Anilkumar P, Ms. Valanka Alemao, Mr. Maloji Raje Chhatrapati, Mr. Menla Ethenpa, Mr. Mohan Lal, Mr. Arif Ali, Mr. K Neibou Sekhose, Mr. Lalnghinglova Hmar, Mr. Deepak Sharma, Mr. Vijay Bali, Mr. Syed Imtiaz Husain, Mr. Syed Hasnain Ali Naqvi.
Co-Opted Eminent Former Players:
Bhaichung Bhutia, IM Vijayan, Shabbir Ali, Climax Lawrence, Pinky Bompal Magar, Thongam Tababi Devi.
Delhi FA President Shaji Prabhakaran will be the General Secretary of the AIFF.
Deputy General Secretary: Sunando Dhar
Chairperson of Technical Committee: IM Vijayan
Advisor to the Technical Committee: Shabbir Ali
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