Kalyan Chaubey meets FIFA President Gianni Infantino

After winning the elections, the AIFF President had revealed about receiving a call from the FIFA President.

AIFF President Mr. Kalyan Chaubey and Secretary General Dr. Shaji Prabhakaran called upon FIFA President Mr. Gianni Infantino at the FIFA Office in Doha, Qatar on Friday, Sept 9, 2022.

They had an encouraging and constructive meeting with the FIFA President on the future development of Indian Football.

Discussions were held on key aspects of development of Indian Football, and areas that require priority focus.

Mr. Infantino confirmed he will visit India in the near future. All the possible high-impact projects and programmes concerning Indian Football will be finalised before the FIFA President's visit to India.

After being elected President, Mr. Kalyan Chaubey had revealed that he had received a call from the FIFA President Mr. Gianni Infantino.

“I received a call from the FIFA President. He wanted to meet me in Zurich or Doha later this year. I briefed him the importance of the next few days. We have the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup India 2022 next month, and told him that we need to discuss amongst ourselves how we plan to take things forward. We will then present our plans to him in detail,” Chaubey said.

“The FIFA President also told me that he was impressed with our honourable Prime Minister’s interest in Indian Football, and the support Shri Narendra Modi-ji has been extending to the sport.”

What FIFA wants AIFF to do for grassroots

Yesterday Kalyan Chaubey addressed the media for the first time since being elected as the AIFF President. He threw light on how the Indian coaches will get more opportunities going forward. This included plans to improve the grassroots level using the government schools. He explained, “There shouldn’t be questions about why the coach should come from Spain or Brazil. We should question that why can’t our coaches go to Spain or Argentina. I want our coaches, referees can go overseas to make us proud. Then we want to slowly send the players to foreign countries. That’s why the FIFA roadmap, ISL future roadmap have gone on. We have contacted the Indian coaches and we will keep our promises to them. In 16 lakh Government schools in India, there are 25-26 crores of children studying. We want to develop grounds there, so we can have 16 lakh football grounds. FIFA wants us to develop footballers from classes 1-6.