Kalyan Chaubey defeated Bhaichung Bhutia 33-1 (PTI Photo)
UNLIKE HIS predecessors, the newly elected president of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), Kalyan Chaubey, did not make the usual promise of taking the men’s senior national team to the World Cup. Instead, the 45-year-old, who defeated Bhaichung Bhutia by a margin of 33 votes to 1 vote to become the first footballer president of the AIFF on Friday, said a short-term plan would be unveiled on September 7, and a long-term vision after his first 100 days in office.
“We will never sell dreams. We will never say that we have created so-and-so academy and we’ll play the World Cup in the next eight years,” he said.
Chaubey, a former Mohun Bagan and East Bengal goalkeeper, has been associated with the BJP since 2015 – he lost the last parliamentary elections from Krishnanagar in West Bengal. State association officials who voted in the elections said Chaubey had the backing of the party leadership.
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Rajasthan Football Association president Manvendra Singh alleged that Law Minister Kiren Rijiju met a “section of voters” on the eve of elections at a hotel in New Delhi and “exhorted” them to “vote against Bhaichung”. Singh, son of late BJP leader Jaswant Singh, joined the Congress in 2018.
“When football administrators exercise their judgments in this way, you can see where Indian football is headed. Just last week, the administrators said they would not misuse their vote; within a week, they changed their stance. It becomes obvious from last night’s proceedings, where a minister came to exhort a particular section of voters to vote against Bhaichung,” Singh, who lost the election for the vice-president’s post, told The Indian Express. Asked who the minister was, he said: “Kiren Rijiju visited the hotel to exhort the voters.”
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Chaubey, who was nominated by the Gujarat state association and seconded by Arunachal Pradesh — Rijiju’s home state — admitted that the former sports minister was present at the hotel on Thursday night, but denied that it was to “exhort the voters”. “That is a lie,” he said.
The political undertones of Chaubey’s rise to the top of the Indian football administration are hard to miss. He is a BJP leader from West Bengal, a football-crazy state where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee used slogans like “khela hobe” (the game is on) during election rallies, played a role in ensuring investors for East Bengal so it could compete in the Indian Super League, and pushed for inclusion of Mohammedan Sporting in the top division.
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On the other hand, Bhutia was earlier with the TMC – he now has his own party, Hamro Sikkim. His rivals had claimed that he was backed by former AIFF president Praful Patel.
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Asked about party or government interference in the process, Chaubey said: “Can you name a federation where the government, or a party, or a politician is not a part of the federation?”
The AIFF has been rocked by several controversies – from allegations of corruption that led to a forensic audit to the FIFA suspension. With Shaji Prabhakaran, a former FIFA development officer and president of Football Delhi, set to be appointed as the general secretary, the newly elected body has a mix of veteran administrators as well as former players, including Bhutia.
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The former India captain said he would join the AIFF executive committee as an “eminent player”, with former men’s team internationals I M Vijayan, Shabbir Ali, Climax Lawrence and former women’s team players Pinky Bompal Magar and Thongam Tababi Devi as other members.
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It’s the first time that so many former players will be a part of the executive committee. “For the first time today, I, Climax and Shabbir Ali got energy while entering the Football House and felt that from now on, even we can go to meetings and contribute to decision making,” said Vijayan. “Kalyan knows how to develop football in the country. It’s a good thing that football players are climbing to the top.”
Chaubey’s immediate challenge will be to ensure the smooth conduct of the Under-17 Women’s World Cup next month, which almost got taken away from India due to the FIFA suspension.
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He will be tested on multiple fronts – from long-term youth development programmes, to a proper domestic structure for men and women players, to making the cash-strapped federation financially sustainable. Chaubey, who spoke to FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Friday, didn’t reveal details, but said his plans would be rooted in reality.
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“I have been to over 100 academy inaugurations and, on each occasion, we were told that those children would play the World Cup in the next eight years… But in reality, that hasn’t happened… So, I won’t make such promises. The only thing I can say is that we will take Indian football forward from its current position. How? A short-term plan will be announced on September 7 and a concrete long-term plan will be unveiled after the first 100 days,” he said.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd
