AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jaydeep »

Really this is very positive step taken by AIFF to groom youngster, we can really hope results from them around next Asiad.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

We have not used this thread in a long time. But time to bring it back up.

News of high court nullifying the AIFF elections, and appointing former election commissioner SY Quereshi to be in charge of financial affairs till fresh elections are held - Court strips AIFF of financial powers

Meanwhile, FIFA, whi has been praising AIFF has apparently written to AIFF asking what is going on, and it could potentially lead to a ban - What AIFF can learn from Pakistan’s mistakes and prevent FIFA ban

I think the FIFA ban threat may be a bit of a scare tactics by AIFF, but it is bloody hell again. The usual one-step-forward-one-step-backward continues in Indian sports...
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Now AIFF has gone to the Supreme Court, basically crying that something needs to be done by next Tuesday when the world u20 bids are due, and playing scare tactic that we will get banned by FIFA (which actually does have a decent possibility). The supreme court agreed to hear the case this Friday, after first saying Monday.. http://www.ibtimes.sg/india-sc-hear-aif ... ndal-19565 .. But I doubt whether the SC would do anything too drastic to squash the Delhi HC decision earlier. We're screwed for a while, possibly, and at the mercy of FIFA.

Sharada Ugra gives a very good rundown of what happened in the disputed election, in the video at this ESPN article - AIFF goes to SC over Praful Patel election case, hearing on Friday

Basically, AIFF resorted to silly tactics like used at "housing colony elections", as Sharda Ugra put it (as alleged in the petitioner's case). If true, it is so pitiful. But we see sports administrators constantly do this. In every sports in India. Praful Patel was okay as a president and AIFF was doing alright, in my view. But they had to go and screw it up. From what we see, he probably would've won anyway. But Indians just cannot stay away from resorting to blatantly unfair (and often childish) politics in every Indian organization/institution, it seems. Mostly these are classless people who don't even mind others seeing their silly political moves which are transparent to everybody, and many even think that they won't be respected as strong-men unless they do these things. I am sure most of you have seen this kind of stuff in various organizations you have all dealt with. I have, both in India and here in the US. It is in the genes.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Like we had expected, the Supreme court refused to give a stay today on the Oct 31st Delhi HC order that invalidated the election of Praful Patel in late 2016 (and asked for a fresh election within 5 months, appointing former chief election commissioner of India at the top of AIFF). The supreme court apparently "reserved the judgement" which means no immediate stay. So the HC order remains in place. The SC has said that there can be "an eminent former footballer" to help SY Quereshi. From one report that I saw, apparently the SC asked for suggestion from the litigant in the case for that, but I am unsure of it. I also saw that the litigant had claimed that "AIFF had brought India down all the way to world #105", so both sides are trying to fool the courts, of course. The courts and the public don't get fooled that easily but that doesn't stop our worm sports politicians from playing the games they always play.

In any event, I suppose our bid for the u20 world cup, due next week, is in trouble. I still don't believe that FIFA will ban us like AIFF was screaming, but they may. Who knows!
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Phew.... Relief for the time being. The Supreme Court placed a stay on the Delhi HC order after all, on Saturday, after the friday news that they refused to stay it. SC Appoints SY Quraishi And Bhaskar Ganguly As Administrators As Committee...

The SC judgment PDF is also there, but the title of the article is wrong. The SC did not appoint them as Administrators of AIFF. They are appointed as administrators/ombudsmen to draft a constitution. As far as I can see, Praful Patel remains as the president of AIFF, so now AIFF can reply to FIFA that there is no third party interference, and put in a bid for the u20 world cup by Tuesday.

It looks like the SC felt that there was some election manipulation due to holes in the constitution but perhaps no illegal activities that wre extreme enough to put a stop to the functioning of AIFF and to suddenly place SY Quereshi to run AIFF as administrator in place of Praful Patel (like the Delhi HC had hastily done on Oc 31st). The SC went with the same name that the Delhi HC had picked but cut down his duties from handling all of AIFF to just being the ombudsman who will focus on fixing the constitution, and they tacked on an eminent former football player to give him help/advice. For the additional ombudsman, they had asked the original petitioner to give suggestions on friday. It is not clear to me if they used his suggestion or not, in picking Mr Ganguly. I believe they will hear the case again in 10 weeks and determine if everything is fine.

But I saw a report that Bhaskar Ganguly, our captain in the 1982 Asian Games, is not in good health and is suffering from a nerve disorder, so it is curious why the SC selected him.

Anyway, saved by the supreme court for the time being. No huge disruptions in all the plans, just at the time when things were beginning to look up. I am surprised at how fast this moved. Thanks you, SC!
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Meanwhile, here is something interesting - SC hits a goal on what ails football in India
“What is the reason why football has not gone up the ranks in this country?” Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, heading a three-judge Bench asked. The court was hearing a plea by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) against a Delhi High Court decision setting aside the election of NCP leader Praful Patel as the president of the sports body.

Advocate Rahul Mehra, on whose petition the high court had set aside the election, replied that football lacks infrastructure at the grassroots level. “The entire structure is missing. India is in the 105 position. For all the wrong reasons we have hit over a century,” Mehra responded to the Chief Justice's query.

“Tell us, how many people actually go to the stadium to watch a football match?” the Chief Justice came up with his next question to Mehra. Without waiting for an answer, the Chief Justice said people hardly venture out to the stadium for football match “because for some reason or the other, people are more attracted to some other sport”.
Bam!

Yes, Your Honor, you are absolutely correct. That sport is named after an insect that eats leaves and makes pointless noise that the world doesn't care for.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by prasen9 »

Sort of. Where I come from, people go to watch sports a lot. Or at least used to. Maybe they are a bit more selective now, but they still do. But, playing is another story. If as many people played the sports and trained as that go to the stadia, we perhaps would have had more success. While they have been okay wrt national standards, they have been lousy wrt international standards.

Part of it is also because all that matters to a huge chunk of parents is for their child to "become a doctor or an engineer". I know of a friend who used to be near state championship levels in tennis. His parents stopped him from playing so that he could concentrate on academics. Many of my friends stopped playing or training for sports after they turned a certain (very young) age. Maybe our parents were wise and most of us would be "coolies at Howrah station" if we did not study and if we did not make it as a sportsman, the odds of which (earning a living) is small unless you are of high international quality.

So, part of it is also the sporting culture. In China, US, etc. our kids get superb near world-class training and get help to balance their sporting and academic careers. We need to also change our national psyche.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Yes, the parents are the problem in India, when it comes to letting kids take sports seriously. But then, the parents in many Asian countries like China and Korea are even worse, in their stress on academics as the end-all for all kids. It is basically a mix of a lot of things. Things are changing in India too, in sports, but only at our traditional slow rate.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

By the way, as per goal.com report, the Supreme court asks for suggestions from the litigant, "sports activist" Rahul Mehra and AIFF. Bhaskar Ganguly and Manoranjan Bhattacharjee were the suggestions from Mehra, and IM Vijayan was the suggestion from AIFF, apparently. The SC picked Ganguly. Looking at the names, I just can't avoid thinking that AIFF's never-ending political fight with many in West Bengal also was behind all this, and I have to suspect if Rahul Mehra was acting on his own. But I know nothing, to be accusing anybody :) ... Mr. Mehra is one of the Aam Admi party founders or something and has been doing PILs etc for a while on AIFF and others like BCCI, Kalmadi and VK Malhotra. So probably not, but I have to guess that some folks would've at least tried to influence him, due to their fights with AIFF. This is all typical stuff in Indian sports politics. But it is a good thing to have checks and balances on our sports administrators, so I have to give Mr. Mehra credit for doing something useful.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by prasen9 »

I grew up with Bhaskar Ganguly as the (or one of the) Indian team goalkeepers and the captain of the team at the Delhi Asiad. He wasn't bad (at least that's what I thought then). How he is as an administrator, I do not have any clue. Hope he shows some administrative competence.
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

prasen9 wrote: Tue Nov 14, 2017 1:08 amI grew up with Bhaskar Ganguly as the (or one of the) Indian team goalkeepers and the captain of the team at the Delhi Asiad. He wasn't bad (at least that's what I thought then). How he is as an administrator, I do not have any clue. Hope he shows some administrative competence
He seems to be in ill-health, as I reported above, with some nerve disorder or something. He is not expected to be an administrator. Actually the Supreme court picked him as an ombudsman, to work with former CEC Quereshi. In fact, SC basically stayed the whole HC order, and only kept Quereshi to redo the AIFF constitution with proper election procedures that comply with the national sports code and conduct elections. Not as the administrator, like the Delhi High court has ordered. The AIFF administration reverted to Praul Patel who remains as president and nothing has changed.

Yes, I also remember Bhaskar Ganguly as a really good goalie. Just don't remember any saves by him or anything, but I too remember thinking of him as really good. I assume he is not somebody with political ambitions at this stage, so he might have been selected as one who would not cause problems but would be a calming voice with some solid football credentials to give weight to anything Quereshi decides that may be contentious for others. Just my assumption.

Anyway, I think the SC came up with a decent decision here. Whether AIFF is run very poorly or not, things have lately been looking up for Indian football, and this was absolutely the wrong time for AIFF to go through an uncontrolled custody fight of the kind the Volleyball Federation is in, which completely set Indian volleyball back, way back...
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by prasen9 »

The reason Monoranjan and Bhaskar were proposed was because they were the ones who filed a PIL in July,2016 against AIFF alleging mismanagement of funds after the large sponsorship deal signed with IMG. Both seemed to be honest players of integrity and were solid players at the national level. Although, Bhaskar and Monoranjan played primarily for East Bengal and were a major pain in the you-know-where for the strikers of the good guys team, which makes them one of the really really bad guys and I should not really be praising him :-) And, then Monoranjan coached EB to a National Football League title, which makes him extra bad. Anyway, I do not know about the character and politicking tendencies of either and I hope they will not be as bad as some of our stalwart sports administrators.

The funny thing is that Bhaskar Ganguly was part of a fiasco during the felicitation of our past captains. Singh honored as Ganguly! These things matter a lot to Indians/in India, I guess. Or maybe among Bengalis. Here is his interview: Ganguly interview I did not get any substantive feeling about whether he will be good or bad for Indian football.

Here is the news about the PIL they filed in 2016. PIL filed against AIFF

From what I know Bhaskar Ganguly has usually not cared for awards, etc. that much in that he did not lobby for it like some ex players have. Report of interview Writeup on BG
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

Well, the issues we were discussing over 4 years ago haven't gone away, and has come to a head with India facing a possible FIFA ban and all that (avoided for the time being). The Supreme count appointed Committee of Adminitrators (CoA) is now in charge.

Here are the updates from over a couple of weeks ago:

SC brings Praful Patel era in Indian football to an end (Indian Express, May 19)
Praful Patel: The artful dribbler shown the red card (Indian Express, May 23)
S. Y. Quraishi confident of cooperation by FIFA... (May 30)

The latest:

Possible FIFA ban on Indian football body could be 'catastrophic' for players: Sunil Chhetri (CNBC TV, June 4)
Immediate suspension by FIFA averted, but timelines key: Former AIFF prez Praful Patel (Indian Express, June 5)

Oh well, the same old same old... It is like every important issue in India is in a Supreme court case. And every one of those cases has Justice Chandrachud and gang setting things up in a holding pattern where we don't know what the SC is going to do, nor when!
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by jayakris »

It seems the Committee of Administrators (CoA) has come up with a draft constitution and sent it to the Supreme Court. I think FIFA and AFC needs us to take care of everything by September 15th to avoid a country ban. Hopefully it will get done. I assume that thise constitution has to be put to vote and all that (not sure though).

Meanwhile, here is an update from a couple of days ago with the usual cribbing about the bylaw changes in any organization - which may be serious issues or just usual whining: Player power, potential for conflict in AIFF draft constitution
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Re: AIFF activities .. General Comments/ Rants ...

Post by JMitcholl09 »

i really thought by this wold cup and 2022 in general india would have more players in major leagues especially the premier league because of how many indians in england training with major clubs. also the national team has not developed at all. idk when they will reach a world cup. should not take this long given the talent pool.
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