Report: CoA sends AIFF's final draft constitution to FIFA, state associations

The world football body have set a deadline of September 15 to hold AIFF elections and avoid a ban.

The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), on Wednesday, sent the final draft of the new constitution of All India Football Federation (AIFF) to world governing body FIFA. It was also sent to the State Associations.

Keeping in line with the deadline set by the FIFA-AFC team that visited the country to evaluate the situation following the intervention of the Supreme Court, the draft constitution will now be submitted to the country's Apex Court on July 15.

The Supreme Court had in May ousted the Praful Patel-led administration for failing to hold elections on time and for breaching the country's National Sports Code. It had also appointed a three-member committee, comprising Justice Anil R Dave, ex-election commissioner Dr. Sy Quraishi and former Indian captain Bhaskar Ganguly, to run the administration, prepare the new constitution draft and hold elections.

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“CoA has sent the final draft constitution to the FIFA today and also given to the state associations,” news agency PTI quoted a source as saying. “The final draft will be sent to the Supreme Court on Thursday, to be filed on Friday (July 15)."

The apex court is expected to hear the matter on July 21, which is the next date of hearing. Once the Supreme Court gives the green signal, AIFF's General Body will then have to approve the constitution within the next seven days.

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With FIFA setting a strict deadline of September 15 to hold the elections and avoid a ban, the Supreme Court will have to approve the new draft within July 31. Once that is done, the AIFF General body will have to approve it in a week's time for elections to be held within the stipulated deadline.

A FIFA ban would mean India will not be able to host October's FIFA U1-7 Women's World Cup. It will also put curtains on their AFC Asian Cup dreams, for which the Blue Tigers qualified recently.

Earlier, News9 had reported that state associations had raised objections to the draft constitution after a meeting with the CoA. According to the report, a total of 44 objections, of which seven-eight were noteworthy, were raised by the stakeholders in the meeting. It also said that the state associations were left unconvinced.

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