AIFF announces measures to streamline unauthorized football tournaments

Several important issues were discussed in the meeting organized by AIFF.

The Executive Committee of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), in its meeting held on June 6, 2024, in Kolkata, has taken a serious view of the fact that various unauthorized and unregistered football tournaments are conducted across the country.

The committee felt that this practice often goes against the interests 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 in the meeting:

1. No AIFF-registered player, coach, or referee should be permitted to participate in unauthorized 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 tournament registration policies. If any organization 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 :

1. only registered clubs/academies can participate
2. only players registered in the registered clubs can represent the teams
3. only licensed referees should be officiating the games
4. organizing bodies should provide full security for the players/officials

The AIFF Acting Secretary General, Mr. 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 unauthorized 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, organized football has not reached the desired level in some parts of the country and unauthorized and unregistered tournaments take advantage of the vacuum created. AIFF’s 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,” Mr. Satyanarayan said.

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